Maelstrom
by chasingafterstarlight
Summary: Jade is a mysterious - and relatively antisocial - USlap gamer. Beck is one of the most famous and outgoing USlap gamers in the world. By fate or by chance, their lives collide and they quickly develop a chaotic friendship. Will that friendship manifest itself as something deeper? (Jade/Beck, as always.)
1. Chapter 1

Maelstrom

_n: __a situation or state of confused movement or violent turmoil._

_Part 1: February 2013_

Uploading: 25%.

Jade sighed, drumming her fingers against her desk. The internet in her crummy house was beyond slow, so to pass the time while her latest Let's Play video uploaded, she decided to check her messages. Her inbox was nearly full: 2,895 new messages. _Seriously?_ She thought to herself, raising an eyebrow. It amazed her every day that people actually took time out of their days to watch her pointless playthroughs of various video games. Maybe, she thought with a laugh, it was her "chillingly seductive voice". Or maybe said people had no lives. Most likely the second.

With a roll of her eyes, she clicked on a message from "jadespearl56" (seriously?).

"Jade," read the message, "ilysm! Im like your biggest fan haha. I was just wondering if u might ever show ur face. I think ur rly pretty. Lol."  
She let out a long sigh upon finishing the message, wondering when people would get it through their heads that her showing her face simply wasn't happening any time soon. She didn't wish to be recognized by relentless fan brigades, nor did she want fans outside her window while she slept. It was much better this way - holed up in her room, limited social (or fan) interaction (besides her best friends and family, of course), being herself the way she wanted to. No need to pretend that she liked people, because honestly? People sucked.

With a shake of her head, she went to the next message and was confused by what she read.

"Jade," said the message, "I really like your videos, but I don't get why you always have to copy GotBeck :P Beckoners are much cooler than Jadeites anyway. Haha."

_Yeah, haha,_ Jade thought sarcastically. Who the hell was GotBeck anyway? She'd never heard of him in her life and now she was being accused of COPYING him? She wondered what went through the minds of people sometimes. Groaning, she navigated to his USlap page - and was surprised to see a normal, semi-good looking guy staring back at her from the corner of one of his various Let's Plays. Interesting. Not only that, but the dude played the same games she did - such as Amnesia (the game that had, ironically enough, brought her to USlap). She was even more surprised when, navigating to her inbox again, she found a new message waiting for her from GotBeck.

"ScissorLuv (or can I call you Jade? Lol),

So apparently our fans have decided to start a war. Lol, I personally find it weird. Ive never heard of you before but apparently Im copying you. Or vice versa.

My name is Beck by the way, and I hope we can be friends or something. I watched a few of your videos and youre very interesting. Though I was disappointed to find you live all the way in NYC :-/ I'm a LA boy.  
Hope to hear back from you soon!

- Beck"

She raised an eyebrow, unsure about this boy's intentions; she'd had many a male USlapper attempt to befriend her for the sole reason that she had breasts. But this guy, at least, seemed sincere so far. Maybe he would prove her wrong.

She began typing out a message in return.

"Hey, Beck.

Yeah, you can call me Jade. Most people do. Fans can be idiots sometimes, as most people can – don't get me wrong, mine are amazing, but everyone's screwed up in some way, y'know? Sorry, I bet this sounds really cynical, and you seem like an upbeat sort of guy.

Thanks for watching my videos, by the way. I'll go return the favor in just a moment, but just from your message you seem like a decent guy. Just don't try to get in my pants and we'll be fine.

Screw the fan war, I say. We can be friends. Message me your Skype; we'll do a co-op or something. Have to be via the internet, though, as I most assuredly do live in New York.

Jade"

Deciding to go through on her word, she pulled up his USlap channel and immediately noticed something she hadn't before – his sheer number of subscribers on USlap. 9,000,000 – 10 times the amount she had! Her jaw dropped. She'd been working years for those 900,000; it was insane to her that someone could have so many. Personally, she thought, she would probably go insane; it was already crazy enough with less than a million subscribers.

It was also strange that he would choose to contact someone like her, someone without the mass of subscribers that he possessed. This reassured her that he hadn't contacted her merely for promotion. Something about her interested him, something besides the monetary, and she was curious as to what exactly that was.

She clicked on one of his videos, smiling as she realized that he, like her, had quite the fascination with Amnesia. He seemed very enthusiastic about what he did but at the same time, he wasn't easily scared; he barely flinched at the jumpscares that nearly had her in tears (never speak of it). His facial expressions, though, were priceless, and she could easily see why people found him amusing.

With a shrug, she checked to ensure that her video had completed uploading, tweeted out the link to her Twitter followers, closed her laptop, and laid back on her bed, only to have her phone buzz incessantly again. She groaned; she hated busy days like this. "What is it?" she snapped as she answered the call.

"Hiii, Jade," said the sing-songy voice on the other side. "I was just wondering if we were still streaming tonight?"

"We stream every Saturday – you know that," Jade said with an annoyed sigh. "Just make sure you remind Robbie, Moose, and Sinjin, okay?"

"'Kay!" the redhead chirped. "Are we gonna play Mario Kart tonight? I loooove Mario Kart, and since Mario Kart 8 came out –"

"Sure, Cat, we can do some Mario Kart." Jade bit her lip to keep from sighing at her ditzy friend. "I'm sure Moose wants to do something more quote-on-quote manly, though, so we'll probably do some Left 4 Dead 2 as well."

"There's so much blood, though," Cat whined.

"You'll survive," Jade replied sharply. "I'll talk to you guys at 8, right? We have to make sure it's all set up right and all that."

"Of course!" Cat said, and Jade could practically hear her beam through the phone. She hung up after that, not bothering with a proper goodbye, and threw her body back onto her bed.

_Why had Beck messaged her_? She found herself wondering again, and she bit the inside of her cheek. There was nothing inherently fascinating about her; she was the typical overly blunt, anti-social, video-game-addicted girl from USlap. Not worthy of someone with 9 _freaking _million subscribers. But her phone pinged beside her, indicating a new USlap PM from someone she was subscribed to.

"Hey there, Jade :)

I can deal with the cynicalness if you can deal with my optimism, I guess!

I hope you enjoyed my video, honestly. I get kind of a lot of hate, I guess 'cause Im getting more well-known, so I dunno if youll enjoy it or not. But hopefully it wont turn you off completely. You seem like an awesome human being, and no, Im not trying to get into your pants! Dont worry about that.

My Skype is GotBeck711 – Im not creative, okay?! Add me; we can Skype sometime and co-op a game. I have a few suggestions that should be amusing for both of us.

Beck"

She smiled inadvertently, and then hated herself for it; being all _happy_ over some USlapper wanting to co-op with her was completely not her thing. But then again, Beck seemed different somehow. Popular – but not money hungry; famous – but not conceited; a male – but not trying to get into her pants. _Different_. Despite her inhibitions, she liked it.

She logged into Skype on her phone, and then typed in his username with agile fingers. His profile popped up immediately. She smirked at his profile picture, obviously taken with the intention of being silly – his eyes were big and his tongue was out, but his smooth olive skin was still flawless. She chastised herself mentally for thinking such things before hitting the "add to contacts" button.

With a shake of her head, she closed the app and then her eyes, deciding to take a quick nap before the stream tonight. Her responsibilities could wait, at least for a few hours.

.

"Jadeeee," Robbie yelled into the Skype call. "Stop zoning out – you're getting mobbed."

"Oh," Jade said with a yawn, not even bothering with the sharp remark she would've normally directed Robbie's way. "Hey, Moose, mind reviving me?"

"I didn't mind the first fifty times, so I guess I won't mind now," Moose joked, his character moving over towards hers. "Pay more attention though, right, Jade?"

"Yeah," Cat squealed. "I'm the one who usually dies a lot!"

"Sorry, okay?" Jade apologized sharply. "I've just got a lot on my mind."

"Jade's got a boyfriend, hm?" Moose grinned over at the other boys, wiggling his blonde eyebrows. "Though I'm surprised, Jade – you don't usually let guys distract you from the real game here."

"Shut up," Jade snapped.

"You might want to run," Robbie said with a laugh. "So, who's this dude?"

"Can we meet him?!" Cat sounded more excited than anyone.

Jade rolled her eyes for what felt like the fiftieth time that day. "Look, guys, there's no one like that in my life, okay? I'm just… busy. With USlap and all that. Sorry."

"I'm not disappointed," Sinjin drawled as he shot some zombies, being as creepy as ever. Jade knew he'd had a crush on her for ages, but none of them ever took it – or him – seriously.

"Just watch my back," Jade growled. "I'm gonna go get some of the tanks."

"We've got your back, Jade," Cat chirped, and the others murmured in agreement. Jade couldn't help but wonder if they were referring to more than just the game.

.

Their first co-op slash Skype session was arranged for the next Wednesday night (since neither of them, God forbid, had "normal" jobs). Jade had to admit she was a bit nervous, but that was a normal thing; she'd felt the same during her first Skype session with Cat and the rest of her crew. What wasn't normal, though, was the desire that flooded her brain for him to like her, for him to want to continue doing videos with her. She fought the desire off and, with shaking hands, answered his call.

"Hey, Jade!" His voice was warm – that was all she could think. His voice was warm cocoa on a cold day, a snug coat in mid-winter, a sweet melody when sleep eluded. She wanted him to say her name again.

"Hi," she said, trying to keep her voice steady. _How was he so cool about this?_

"So I was thinking we could play some Left 4 Dead 2," Beck continued, still sounding confident as ever. "It's one of my favorites, and it's not terribly scary, plus it'll test our ability to work together."

"Fine with me," Jade replied, remembering how she'd played with the crew just a few nights ago and hoping she'd be able to concentrate a little better. She didn't want Beck thinking that she was a "terrible gamer" – weird as it sounded. "But if you don't revive me or fail to watch my back, I swear to God, I'll return the favor. _Tenfold_. By my own hands."

Beck laughed.

Jade raised an eyebrow. Usually when she threatened guys, they hung up the Skype call or whatever. They most _certainly_ did not laugh. This was a new concept to her, and she was intrigued. "What's funny?"

"Your viewers were right," Beck said offhandedly. "Your voice is sexy."

Her heart practically leaped out of her chest. Working hard to conceal her blush (although since there was no video, Beck sure as hell couldn't tell), she replied, "Oh shut up, Beck. No, wait, I need an embarrassing nickname for you. I'll start off with Becky Boy. Get on my bad side and it'll get worse."

"Kay, Jade." He didn't seem deterred by her various attempts at insulting him, which simply made her more interested. "Join my game, all right?"

"Fine." She whipped out her Xbox controller and waited for the game to load up. "I'm gonna start recording, all right?"

"No fair that you get to record," he complained, but when she shot him a glare (that he unfortunately couldn't see), he chuckled. "I didn't want to do all the editing anyway."

Once she pressed record, she immediately started in with her usual intro. "Hi people. As you hopefully know by now, it's Jade here. If that name sounds unfamiliar – you're in the wrong place, first of all, and second of all you suck. Anyway, I have a special guest recording with me today."

"Heyyy everyone!" greeted Beck in his typical enthusiastic voice. "What's up? I'm GotBeck, but you can call me Beck."

"Or they could call you a sad, sad man and be done with it," Jade quipped.

"…shut up. Anyway, a lot of our fans sent both of us messages about a 'fan war' that's happening between our fandoms, and through that we found each other's channels and realized we've got a lot of common," Beck explained.

"So I decided maybe I'd see if this dude is worth it. I bet he hasn't got half as much skill as he's got prettiness."

"You think I'm pretty?"

"I think you're something, all right," Jade said with a groan, thankful he couldn't see the slight pink that tinged her cheeks. "Anyway, we're going to be playing some Left 4 Dead 2 today. A classic, right? You can never have enough – "

"ZOMBIES," Beck interrupted dramatically before she could finish. She sent him a faux-annoyed glare (although she knew he couldn't see it).

"Yeah, that." She tried to keep her voice steady, knowing that any trembling wouldn't be attributed to "just nerves". "So, yeah, we hope you enjoy."

"I'm gonna win," Beck stated confidently.

"Or you're gonna lose and tell everyone you won to preserve your manly pride," Jade shot back, feeling the confidence return to her. She was rather proud of her quick-witted comebacks; the loss of them would be quite the blow.

"Hey, that's offensive. I'd never lie to my dudes," Beck replied breezily, his warm voice almost infectious. The game started up at last and they appeared in the base room, surrounded by supplies. Being the typical boy he was, Beck immediately went for the biggest gun, but Jade prided herself on being more selective and thought carefully before selecting hers. Overly active as always, Beck's character practically bounced by the door. "Are you ready yet?"

"Calm down, I'm picking up a health pack," Jade answered, giving Coach and Nick a shot in the shoulder for good measure. When she realized who Beck had chosen, she groaned. "Beck, why the hell are you Ellis?"

"Hey," Beck said, seemingly offended. "Ellis is a good guy."

"He never stops talking," Jade griped, following her companion out the door as the zombies began strutting towards them. Sighing, she began shooting, hoping she was at least making a dent in the hoards of the undead.

"So the gas tanks show up in white on this map," Beck mused as he shot down a few more zombies. "I see one over there. Watch my back while I go get it?"

"I'm not your slave," Jade retorted, but she did as he said anyway, shooting down any zombie that dared threaten him. Before long, Coach and Nick followed her out there with the rigid, mechanical motions that accompanied CPU characters.

"I got the gas tanks!" Beck said brightly. "Okay, cover me again while I put them in the car, okay?"

Reluctantly she agreed once again, but she succeeded in protecting him until he emptied both tanks into the car. Sighing, she reminded him, "Four more to go."

"Yeah, yeah, we can do this," Beck told her, enthusiasm invading his normally 'stoic' voice. "Just watch out for that room down there. The zombie-thing with the ten million arms will grab you and – _do _things to you."

"Thanks for the heads-up." Her sarcastic tone didn't deter him, though, because his character dashed up the stairs, bidding her to follow.

"Looks like the coast is clear," Beck informed her seriously, heading down the hall towards the white outline of a gas tank.

She couldn't help but roll her eyes. "What are you, someone off Scooby Doo?"

"If I'm Fred, you can be my Daphne," Beck told her in a way that was almost flirtatious.

"I'm no damsel in distress, Becky Boy," Jade retorted.

"Oh, believe me, I know," Beck responded. "The way you've taken down those zombies tells me everything I need to know."

By this time she had grown a little more sensitive to the changes in his voice; and she could tell that there was something brewing behind the surface of those seemingly innocent words. She could not yet pinpoint what it was, however, and she had a feeling it would bug her for the rest of the game.

Instead of asking, though, she simply followed him to the gas tank and protected him as he picked it up. As the two of them headed back down to the car, Jade spun around to ensure they weren't being followed by zombies. "So, three more, huh?"

"Yep," Beck replied, popping the 'p' – and, surprisingly, she wasn't annoyed. "You get the next one. I'll watch your back."

"I don't trust you," she replied darkly.

"Aw, c'mon Jade, give me a chance," Beck replied cheekily. She could almost see the smirk that was probably stretched across his face, and she wanted to be there beside him so that she could smack it off rather than talking to him through a dumb computer screen – wait, _what_?! This was a new sensation to her; usually she kept her Internet relationships on the Internet and nowhere else. She didn't go to conventions. She didn't visit her friends. She was antisocial and she liked it that way.

Confused, Jade bit her lip and then realized she hadn't answered Beck. "Oh, sorry, I spaced out," she halfway apologized, mentally noting to edit that out of the video later. "Fine. But if you let me die –"

Before she could finish her sentence, though, a wave of zombies appeared seemingly from nowhere. She fought back, of course, but it was too late, especially without the assistance of Beck, Coach, and Nick, and she quickly died. With a long-suffering sigh, she said, "I died."

"I'll come revive you," Beck informed her, wriggling his way towards her through the throng of zombies. "Slide to me, Jadey."

"Don't call me that." Despite her annoyance at the idiotic nickname (who in their right mind would come up with _that_?), she tried to slide over to him and laughed at how ridiculous she felt, dead but somehow still sliding around.

Beck laughed as well. "Yeah, like that," he said in his deep voice that made his female fans swoon. "Slide over here, baby."

"I'm going to murder you in your sleep," she threatened as he began to revive her.

"That's okay; you'll just revive me after."

"You're the worst," she retorted, but she couldn't help but smile a little. It wasn't often that another USlapper understood her odd sense of humor and bantered with her; she had that connection with her crew, but Cat was easily offended and Moose was somewhat of a scumbag at times and Sinjin was creepily obsessed with her and Robbie was a dork. "This game sucks."

"Please, Jade," Beck scoffed. "It's one of the best selling games of all time, probably because the zombies are just so darn sexy."

"Not as sexy as me, though," Jade told him, shooting another one in the head. "We need a game plan. Coach, Nick, Becky Boy, get over here."

Grumbling, Beck made his way over to her, but the two CPU characters seemed to be taking their precious time. Irritated, Jade shot them in the head, causing Beck to let out a startled sound (which, of course, made her laugh). "Thought you weren't scared easy, Becky Boy."

"I'm not," Beck shot back. "It was a moment of weakness."

"Whatever." She glanced around. "Okay, here's the plan. Only two left, so we split up and each get one. Yes?"

"I don't think this is a good plan," Beck said hesitantly, but he went along with it anyway, and so the two went their separate ways – Beck to the right and Jade to the left. Upon reaching her goal, though, Jade discovered that it was 'protected' by an army of zombies, who were all attacking her at once. She tried her best to defend herself, but was quickly taken down by the mass of undead bodies. Under her breath, she mumbled, "I may or may not be dead."

"I may or may not be dying," came the response.

"_Ugh_. I need you to come revive me."

"Too late."

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN WE'RE ALL DEAD?" Jade hissed as the end screen came upon her screen.

"You killed Coach and Nick, remember?" Beck reminded her patiently.

"Well, _crap_." Jade sat for a moment, irritated with herself above anything, before she said, "No way in hell I'm doing all that again. New game?"

"Sure." Beck sat silently for a moment, most likely thinking, before he suggested, "Grand Theft Auto?"

"IV or V?" Jade inquired.

"V, definitely," Beck answered. "IV's great for its time, but V's graphics are just so much better. I still play IV though sometimes."

"I just enjoy shooting people, so either's fine with me," Jade deadpanned. Much to her surprise, Beck chuckled – and she was surprised that he didn't simply hang up on her, thinking her to be some sort of crazy psychopath.

A few minutes later, both their characters appeared on the wide streets of Los Santos. Jade immediately seized the opportunity and shot Beck in the shoulder.

"Ow!" Beck complained. "You're such a cheater."

"Please," Jade scoffed in return. "I could beat you with my eyes closed."

"If there's really a way to win in Grand Theft Auto," Beck replied. "Oh, yeah, we could do whoever gets the snazziest car."

"Did you really just use the word 'snazziest'?" Jade asked, seriously wondering why she had allowed herself to co-op with this insanely strange guy.

"Yes, and don't judge," Beck snapped, taking the opportunity to snag a nice-looking car, but his sounds of disappointment followed shortly after. "Aw, it doesn't go fast."

Laughing only for a second, Jade rotated around to view the whole street, her eyes falling upon a sleek, grey car. She dashed over to it and jumped on top, effectively halting the vehicle (and causing its patrons to inevitably complain). With a roll of her eyes, she pushed them out onto the streets and began driving, a satisfying purr accompanying her startup. She caught up to Beck in less than a minute. "I think we know who's the real winner here."

"No fair," Beck complained. "You play GTA, like, once in a blue moon, and you're still better than me."

"Get used to it, Becky Boy," Jade said with a smirk, thinking that maybe she _would _get used to this – to being able to actually beat someone at video games, to having someone to banter with, to uploading actual co-ops again with another USlapper. _Might be nice_, she thought to herself.

They played for another hour or so, surfing on ambulances, driving off cliffs, and killing obnoxious people, before Jade began to yawn. She remembered, then, that Beck was three hours behind her, and while it was 3 am where she was, it was only midnight for him – and he was a night owl, anyway. "I gotta go soon," she informed him. "I'm getting tired – some of us have to actually sleep, you know."

"Losers," Beck fake-coughed, before giving a small laugh. "Kidding, I understand. We'll play together again soon, yeah?"

"Sure," Jade answered. "Give me an outro."

"Beck will win against Jade one of these days! Yeah. Probably. Hopefully," he finished, chagrined. Jade simply laughed.

"We'll see about that, Beck."

.

She uploaded the video the next day, and the feedback was almost immediate. Comments ranged from "I HAD NO IDEA U KNEW GOTBECK!" (although they'd explained the situation at the beginning of the video) to "U GUYS WOULD BE SO CUTE TOGETHER!" (no comment) to "UR ONLY USING GOTBECK FOR SUBSCRIBERS U THIRSTY HOE". The "cute together" group seemed to be the majority, though, and they took no time in translating the video to Tumblr.

Jade knew enough about the insane world known as Tumblr to know that if something could be shipped, it would, and it would have a ship name, fanfiction, and fanart. The ship name came first – it was GotBade at first, a combination of GotBeck and Jade, but they quickly realized that made no sense and tried ScissorBade, ScissorBeck, GotLuv, and finally realized that combining USlap names was fruitless and chose the simple Bade. It took a while for the ship to catch on enough for fanart, though, and by that time Jade had already uploaded the GTA video as well.

The first fanart she saw featured her as she was typically portrayed in fan-art – gloriously beautiful, almost inhuman (which was far from the truth, Jade thought, fingering her eyebrow piercing) kissing a seriously sexy Beck. She felt the heat inadvertently rise to her cheeks and quickly closed it.

The second one was less risqué, though, showing the two of them back-to-back holding guns with a myriad of zombies following them. She quite liked that one, actually, and sent Beck a link to it via Steam.

While on Steam, though, she decided to check her messages. After weaving through a mess of fanmail, she discovered a message from an old friend of hers – KeyboardDre, more commonly known as simply Andr_é_. "Hey Jade," read the message, "didn't know you were friends with Beck! Cool chiz. We should all do a co-op together sometime. Miss you, girl."

She smiled slightly to herself. She'd become friends with Andr_é _over the last year, discovering that they both were passionate about games and had a similar sense of humor. He was a cool, chill guy, the ideal kind of friend, and she found herself becoming fond of him. They'd played co-op a few times, but he'd been rather busy recently so she hadn't heard much from him, and so she was glad to be hearing from him now. Immediately, she typed back a quick confirmation, saying she'd love to play co-op with the both of them sometime, though she wondered how that would go.

Whatever. No worries. André was awesome and Beck, well, Beck was Beck. They'd find a fun multiplayer game and have a fun time, right?

_Right._

_._

**GotBeck: Jade.**

**GotBeck: Jade.**

**GotBeck: JADEEEE.**

**GotBeck: Wake up, sleepyhead! :D Its 3 PM. Sleep is for the weak.**

**GotBeck: Just kidding, youre strong! Dont kill me please.**

**GotBeck: But seriously… come play this game with Andr**_**é **_**and I!**

Jade rolled her eyes as she scrolled through the spam with Beck, but got online on Skype anyway, accepting the call that immediately popped up. Yawning, she said, "Hey, guys."

"Hey, Jade," Beck said a little too happily.

"Sup, sleepyhead," André acknowledged her.

"I was up late working on uploading the latest part of this game that's consuming my soul," Jade said with a sigh. "So yeah, sorry about that. What game are we thinking of playing, though?"

"It's a trivia game," Beck said, failing at stifling his laughter. "André and I thought you'd be good at it."

"Yeah, dawg," André agreed, laughter infecting his voice as well. "Whip out your Playstation and let's get to this chiz."

"I don't trust you guys," Jade retorted, feeling nervous. But she followed their instructions nonetheless, and soon entered the 'legendary' game known as TV Show Kings. She couldn't help but chuckle at the people André and Beck had set as their avatars – dumb-looking but attractive females, inevitably – and couldn't help but compare them to the evil-looking Goth she'd set as hers.

"Jade, you're kinda creepy. Not even kinda. Like killer from a horror movie level creepy," Beck pointed out.

"Thanks," Jade drawled. "At least I look like I have an ounce of common sense, which, considering this is a game show, might be helpful – "

"Hey!" André protested, sounding offended. "Don't be racist! I'm gonna dominate, just you watch."

"Yeah, dominate at losing," Beck shot back.

"Hey, who's that other guy?" Jade inquired. "Burf?"

"What kind of dude is named Burf?" Beck sniggered.

"Hey, Burf!" André laughed at the doofy looking CPU that sat beside him. "You're gonna lose, dude!" Burf simply smiled in response, making all of them laugh.

"So my goal is to beat Burf," Jade said seriously.

"And my goal is to beat all of y'all, so there," André shot back with a grin. "I'm takin' names."

The first question appeared on the screen, part of the "Nature" category. "Which animal is typically not found on a farm? 1) Cow, 2) Pig, 3) Dinosaur, 4) Sheep." Jade, having good sense, picked 3, as did André, and Burf, being the NPC, of course went with 1. Beck, however, picked 2.

"Why would a pig not be on a farm?!" Jade questioned as the answers were revealed and she and André received their cash.

"I thought – I didn't see the not!" Beck whined, sounding like a petulant child. "Leave me alone, guys! I'm still gonna win because I'm so sexy."

That proved to not be true, though, and at the end of the round, Jade was in the lead. The wheel question popped up and all four players chose to spin it, and Beck, being Player 1, spun first.

"How do you spin this thing? Oh, got it," Beck muttered, probably throwing his controller – but it got it to spin nonetheless, and it went around and around until it landed on – lose $5000.

"Oh, screw this game!" Beck reacted, almost sounding angry. "I'm almost in the negatives! I was in last place! Do they have no mercy?"

"Nope, and neither do I," André chuckled as he spun. "Oh, good, $1000. You jealous yet, Beck? I'm makin' it rain, bro. Makin'. It. Rain."

"Screw you guys, I'm winning this," Jade said as she gave the wheel a rough spin. "See, $5000. It's almost too easy."

Burf, the CPU in last place, spun next, and all three of them booed him on as he spun, but somehow he managed to land on the space that allowed him to trade with a player. Nervously, Jade sucked in a breath as he chose and then –

"OH, SCREW YOU, BURF," Jade yelled as all her money was deposited into Burf's account. "I WORKED HARD FOR THAT CRAP! God, I hate this game. Why are we playing this?"

"I can't believe Burf beat us," Beck said, sounding shocked. "André, did you see that? Burf beat us. We were beat by Burf."

For a second, Andre sat in silence. When he finally spoke, all he said was "…we're playing again."

And so they did. They played 2 more rounds before at last André had to ditch, stating he had to go to some late-night music festival. That left Jade and Beck alone in the call, and an awkward silence set in before Jade spoke.

"That was actually fun."

"You sound surprised," Beck chuckled. "André and I aren't that bad. We just, well, have male parts."

"You can say penis, you know," Jade shot back. "I get it. You and André have penises. Crap, that's weird to think about. Ew. Never mind."

Beck gave a loud, audible laugh, so different to the one's she'd heard in some of his videos where he seemed tired or upset or annoyed but faked a laugh to please his 'dudes' – this one seemed real. In a quiet voice, he murmured, "I'm glad we met, Jade – even if it's only via the Internet."

"Hey now, don't get all mushy on me," Jade warned. "But whatever. I'm glad we met, too, I guess."

"We're going to have to make more 'Bade' videos or the fans will drive us crazy, you know." He gave a deep laugh. "But hey, whatever. We can play some more games with André, and I've been looking for someone to play Portal 2 with…"

"You're not smart enough for that one, man," Jade pointed out.

"That cut me deep," Beck complained. "I bet I could figure it out!"

"Lies and more lies," Jade informed him. "But I guess we could give it a try. Just so I can laugh at how much you suck."

Another laugh was her response and then, "You're the worst."

"You're even worse."

"Well, you're the worstest! Ugh, that's not a word."

"No, Beck," Jade said, smiling warmly – for once. "No, it's not."

And although she was dealing with possibly one of the most ridiculous – and of course, the most famous – USlappers in the world, she felt content – like something was drawing her to him and refusing to let go. And, at least for now, she didn't mind.

_._

_**New Steam Message**_

_**KittyKitCat: Hey Jaaaaaaaade! Next Saturday we're toootally talking about this whole new Bade thing. You and Beck are so kawaii. :3**_

_**ScissorLuv: Shut up, Cat.**_

_._

**A/N: Don't even ask. If you know about stupid YouTubers, you know which two are heavily referenced in this fic (and slightly based off with the meaning and many of the videos) and those two have ruined me so yeah. (I know the timeline's not correct; I didn't intend it to be!) Also shut it I know they're idiots and there are "100000 YouTubers better" but who cares. I wanted to do this as a Bade AU and so I am.**

**I haven't written Bade in a while (read: 2 months) so I hope they're IC enough for you guys. Just a few notes, again:**

**USlap: a spinoff of YouTube, connected to TheSlap obviously**

**I've only played L4D2 a few times and never GTA so sorry if I messed anything up! It wasn't my intention.**

**It might be a little confusing and I apologize for that!**

**This will be Bade **_**romance **_

**Please leave me a review and let me know what you thought. I'll try and update at least within the next month or so – and reviews, of course, motivate me to continue, plus I'll try to reply to all of them.**

**Next chapter: more of Jade's Crew, the introduction of the characters who were left out of this chapter, and TTT.**

**Also, Britt, the GTA part is dedicated to you. Happy? ;;;)**


	2. Chapter 2

Maelstrom

_n: __a situation or state of confused movement or violent turmoil._

_Part 2: May 2013_

Jade yawned, attempting to keep her head up nonetheless; it wouldn't do to have her falling asleep on one of their streams. Cat's giggle jolted her up. "Sleepy already, Jade?" Cat teased.

"No," Jade replied grumpily. "I just wish this race would start already."

"I'm gonna win," Moose stated confidently. "That is, as long as Robbie doesn't spam those freakin' red shells and win by cheating. We all know there's no way he could win otherwise."

"Hey!" Robbie protested. "That's offensive!"

"But true," Jade replied. "If you're being beaten by either Robbie or Sinjin, you know there's something wrong with your life."

Robbie spluttered out some protests, but Sinjin's reply was simply "I would consider it a pleasure to be beaten by you, Jade." She gave a long-suffering sigh in response to that – there was no use in informing Sinjin that she was not, nor would she ever, be into him; he never seemed to get the point.

"Three seconds," Cat chirped. "Two… one!"

"Thank you, Big Ben," Jade retorted, holding controller. "I swear, if anyone hits me with a red shell this race they're going to taste my shell in their –"

"Jade!" Cat cut her off with a gasp.

Jade simply grinned wickedly as she came up behind Cat, and then swerved past her with a boost of speed. "Bye, Kitty Cat."

"Not fair," Cat protested. "Hey, watch out for that green shell!"

With Cat's warning, Jade successfully avoided it, but the same did not hold true for Moose – the green shell hit him and knocked him off the edge of the map. The string of words he let out in response made Cat squeal and cover her ears.

"Nice one, Sinjin," Jade said, holding in her laughter.

"Thank you, my queen," Sinjin replied humbly. Jade simply rolled her eyes at him, speeding away from him as quickly as she could.

"I'm winning!" Robbie chirped, sounding like an innocent little bird – something Jade hated. So, inevitably, she took the opportunity to hit him with a blue shell, knocking him all the way back to fifth place, behind her and quite a few of the random players that had joined them. He pouted. "You guys suck so much."

"Man up, Shapiro," she retorted, loving to pick on her wimpy, somewhat annoying (but still tolerable) "friend". He was one of the few people on USlap that preferred to be called by his full name rather than just his first name (like Jade) or a nickname (like Moose) so she inevitably used that to her advantage. "And get good."

"You get good!" Robbie sputtered, obviously offended – which, rather than making Jade feel bad, simply made her laugh. "Don't throw that green shell at me, Moose!"

"Get good then," Moose shot back, making Jade laugh. Back in the day, quite a few people had shipped them, but Jade knew that he was little more than a friend – and besides that, he had a girlfriend, one that was funny and hardcore and really cared about Moose. No way would she jeopardize that.

Jade sighed, but continued on – dodging red shells, yelling at Cat when she hit her with the boomerang, and drifting like a boss. She ended up in third place, which was fine with her; however, the rest of them were not quite so lucky.

"12th place?" Robbie yelped. "I was doing so well!"

"This game sucks – worst game of the year," moped Moose, who had somehow ended up in 10th place.

"It's really fun, though!" Cat informed everyone, relentlessly optimistic as ever.

"And the graphics are almost as beautiful as Jade," Sinjin said dreamily, one of his twisted compliments Jade couldn't stand.

"Thanks," Jade hissed, but suddenly her Steam made its weird noise, indicating a new message. Curiously, she slid her laptop over to where she sat – who would be messaging her at this time of night?

**New Steam Message: **

**Beck**: Jade :D Just woke up and saw you were online so I figured Id say hi :) also curious if youd be interested in getting some people together for a lil game of TTT? message me whenever :D

She felt herself smiling inadvertently; somehow he brought out an odd reaction in her. The others, however, noticed her sudden silence (and heard her Steam notification) and immediately figured out what was happening.

"Ohh, Jade," Cat squealed, "did you get a message from Beck?"

"Yeah," she replied indifferently, "he just wanted to know about another co-op soon or whatever. No big deal."

"No big deal?" Moose gasped. "No big deal except… Bade."

"Shut up," she said with a small laugh. The fan hype had merely gotten stronger, especially as they'd posted a few more videos together, and Jade found it amusing more than anything. Of course, so did her friends.

"I ship it!" Cat squealed, her enthusiasm leaking all over her words.

All Jade could do was groan.

.

She messaged Beck later that night, though, after being annihilated in Mario Kart by those freaking red shells, and told him she was all for it. Beck replied happily, saying that one of his friends had already agreed to play, and would she ask Andr_é_ because he liked her better (which was untrue, Beck was probably just being lazy). She did it nonetheless. Within minutes, André replied, saying that he was all for it.

They decided to play the next Friday. G-mod was one of Jade's favorite games, honestly, because of the complete versatility it possessed - within one simple game was the potential to play and create lots of other games. So she was psyched to play with Beck, André, and – well, whatever friend he'd invited.

Beck called her then, snapping her out of her musings. "Hey, Jade," he greeted. "So, André's here and I wanted to introduce you to my friend –"

"Vega," she deadpanned. "I should've known."

Tori Vega's laugh came through the Skype call, confirming Jade's suspicions. The young, pretty gamer girl went by the name ToriVegaDocious on USlap and was famous for her fresh approach to video games, as well as her peppy personality. Although she was completely opposite to the cynical Jade, the two of them simply had a friendly relationship characterized by bickering and had played a few games together in the past. Besides, despite Tori's relative attractiveness, Jade knew Tori was no threat to her relationship with Beck – not that she was worried about that or anything. Tori's voice interrupted her thoughts. "Hey, Jade."

"Oh, you guys know each other," Beck said, surprised. "It's weird, Jade – we know all the same people; you think we'd have met sooner."

"Yeah, that is really weird," Jade replied, slightly confused herself – why hadn't André or Tori mentioned Beck soon? Perhaps they figured the two of them wouldn't get along, since Jade usually wasn't a fan of cocky, silly guys like Beck – but Beck was different somehow. She couldn't put her finger on how, but he was. "So, enough chat. Who's up for some TTT?"

"I'm innocent," Tori piped up.

Jade rolled her eyes. "Vega, we haven't even started yet."

"I'm still innocent!" Tori protested.

With a shake of her head, Jade got to work setting up the server – not like the other three could do it – and then all of them joined. As the game prepared, Jade whipped out her gun and shot Beck in the head.

"Excuse me!" Beck spluttered. "The game hasn't even started yet! I could be innocent, ya know."

"I think you and André are conspiring together," Jade shot back, spinning around to aim a few shots at André, who seemed equally as offended at being chosen as the 'traitor'. Since the game hadn't started yet, no health was taken away – but that didn't mean André took it well.

"I think you're the traitor!" André hissed, shooting her back.

At that point, though, the game began, and Jade was listed as innocent. In her best imitation of Tori Vega's innocent girl voice, Jade whined, "Don't shoot me, guys, I'm all innocent and sweet and stuff."

"I don't talk like that!" Tori protested immediately.

"Liar." Jade smirked.

"I think we should just sing a little song and get along, dawg," André cut in. "Let's sing that song that's all over the radio – _Make It Shine_ or whatever."

"I love that song!" Tori replied cheerily. "_Here I am, once again – "_

"_Feeling lost but now and then."_ André joined her.

"_I breathe it in to let it go –"_

"_And you don't know where you are now…"_

"_Or what it would come to if only somebody could hear."_

"_When you figure out how you're lost in the moment…"_

"_You disappear!"_

Their song was interrupted by the sound of gunshots and suddenly Jade's character was lying on the ground, dead already. Immediately, Tori and André took action and gunned Beck, the perpetrator, down – only to discover he was innocent as well. "WHAT THE HECK WAS THAT?" Jade practically yelled, confused.

"…the beat dropped," Beck replied innocently.

Jade couldn't help but laugh at how completely ludicrous his reasoning was and soon enough André and Tori joined in. "The beat dropping doesn't mean everything else has to drop as well!"

This only made André and Tori laugh more – before, of course, they realized they were the only two left and one of the two had to be the traitor. This realization made Tori scream – probably because in her shootout with Beck she had minimum health, putting André at an extreme advantage.

"Andréeeee," Tori sang loudly, pacing the hallways in pursuit of her friend. "Where are youuuu?"

"Hey, Tor," André said nervously as she approached his location. "Listen, we can talk this out – "

But it was too late. The gunshots started flying from both directions and before they knew it, André was dead – and, apparently, he had been the traitor. Tori yelped victoriously. "I've won for all _decent_ humankind."

"So racist," André muttered under his breath, making Beck and Jade crack up.

A new map loaded and as their characters spawned, Beck began to speak. "Okay, now we must lay down some rules. No shooting people unless they've given you a reason to shoot them –"

"You're the one that's going around randomly shooting people just because the 'beat dropped'!" Jade objected.

"Excuse me, Jade, listen to the rules," Beck told her calmly. "It's okay to kill people when the beat drops."

"Oh my gosh," Jade groaned, rolling her eyes at Beck's antics.

"So when the beat drops you just kill everyone?" Tori questioned. "Yes, Beck, that's how this game works."

"That's not how it's supposed to work!" Jade informed them all.

"Yeah, if you play the _boring_ way," Beck replied offhandedly.

With a roll of her eyes, Jade began exploring the map. She entered a room that had a suspicious thing in the middle of it – a metal circle with a glowing blue hue, looking somewhat like the portals from Portal 2. With a frown, she asked, "What's this portal doing here?"

"Oh, it's the Stargate!" Tori exclaimed happily, as if this _Stargate_ was the solution to all the world's problems. "Let's all go to it."

"I don't know where it is," André complained, "and also I think you're the traitor."

"This way," Beck replied, probably attempting to guide André to the room Jade was in. (Not that it would work out well – Beck had the directional sense of a two-year-old.)

Eventually, the other three showed up in the room in front of Jade, a room with a glass window that allowed them to see her in the Stargate. "Hey girl," André greeted her, shooting the glass window in front of her as some twisted form of greeting.

Beck moved forward then, obviously triggering some sort of button because the window in front of Jade suddenly begun to be encased by a metal covering. "I'm gonna die," Jade hissed. "Stop it!"

"I'm sorry!" Beck apologized quickly, pressing all sorts of buttons in an attempt to get the metal casing to retract back up – but in vain.

"I'm claustrophobic," Jade told everyone dramatically.

Beck hit another button, and this one apparently controlled the metal casing, because it began to pick back up. Relieved, Beck said, "See, you're fine."

"Whatever. Just get your butts in here," Jade commanded.

The other three scrambled madly to find the door, but it took them a while to navigate their way to the Stargate. Once they got there, André inquired, "What happens if you go through the Stargate?"

"You die…or something like that," Beck informed them ominously.

"Hey, let's all go through it together," Tori chirped. "It'll be fun. Like a bonding experience or something."

Beck, not being the most adept at deciphering suspicious situations, immediately walked up to the Stargate, and Jade followed – but accidentally went too far and found herself being consumed by it. "Jade!" Beck yelped. "Jade, are you all right?"

"I'm dead," she replied monotonously.

"I'll rescue you!" he said brightly, but as soon as he stepped in he was killed as well. That left André with Tori – and at this point, it was obvious who the traitor was.

"You tricked us!" André yelled, but it was too late to protest – Tori shot him before the last syllable left his mouth.

"Well, you were right, André," Jade said with a laugh.

"It was kind of a thing of the Stargate kills you and she's like, yeah, let's all go to it," André told them all, laughing.

"Well, it worked!" Tori said, sounding offended.

The game reset – Jade was still innocent. "Let's all congregate," Jade said. "No one shoot yet. That means you, Beck."

"Hey!" Beck protested, but followed André and Tori over to where Jade was. Once they were all there, Beck began speaking in a quote-on-quote feminine voice. "Hey, guys, how's it going, I'm Jade. I hate ducks, cilantro, bras that hook in the front, people who put ketchup on hot dogs, the number nine, happiness, and babies. Oh, and if you're watching this and you're offended by any of that, I probably hate you too." As he said the last syllable, he shot Jade multiple times, killing her. When André and Tori lifted their guns to him, he monotonously said, "Hey guys, don't shoot me." This simply made the other two laugh as they shot him down.

"Best traitor ever. You were so chill about it, man," André told him through peals of laughter. "Did you think we wouldn't shoot you?"

"I thought maybe if I stayed calm you guys wouldn't shoot me," Beck said defensively.

"Oh yeah, that'll work," André retorted. "Yeah man, when I went up in that bank and shot up everyone I figured the police wouldn't arrest me if I just stayed calm."

That set off everyone again, making them laugh nonstop for a few seconds until they remembered how to breathe. "Oh yeah, killing Jade, just an average Saturday," Beck mocked with a laugh.

"Hey, at least you were right – I hate all that stuff," Jade said, grinning. "Have you been studying me or something?"

"…I may have watched quite a few of your videos to figure that out," Beck admitted reluctantly, making André hoop and holler at this reluctant confession and Tori giggle.

"Well, you know what else I hate?" Jade said with a smirk.

"What?" Beck asked, reluctance still in his voice.

"Canada." Jade laughed, knowing that despite the fact that Beck lived in LA currently, he was born and raised Canadian

"You did _not_," Beck gasped. "Canada is an amazing, friendly country and you're just jealous because you're a stinky American – although even that is doubtful cause you don't dip your fries in ketchup."

"Ketchup is _disgusting_!" Jade told him angrily, passionate about her ketchup dislike.

"…guys, the next round is starting," Tori cut in, interrupting their little 'feud'.

"Oh," Jade said loudly and in her 'scary voice' – the one that practically made Robbie pee his pants.

Jade was the traitor this time, which meant she had to think up a way to kill the other three. The first step, she thought, was to lure them all into the same room, so she began shooting the wall. "Guys, follow the sound of the gunshots," she said loudly. "Seriously. I'm not gonna do anything bad. Just c'mon."

No protests were made, and in a few moments Tori, Beck, and André showed up. "Everyone come in," Jade instructed, leading them to stand in front of a red light. "Look at this light. Now watch." Jade moved forward and, upon contact with the light, it turned green. "It changed colors."

"That's great?" Tori said, sounding hesitant.

"Yep." Jade popped the 'p'. Now that they were successfully distracted, Jade rooted through her inventory, deciding to purchase a C4. It was the quickest way to kill everyone, she figured. Trying to be sneaky, she set it down and then –

"_Why'd you kill me?"_

"Jade, you set down a C4," Tori said through peals of laughter. "Did you really think we wouldn't notice?"

"I was just about to make up an excuse, too," Jade pouted. "You didn't even give me a chance!"

"You were the traitor!" André exclaimed.

"Traitors are humans too!" Jade reminded them, but even she was laughing, not allowing herself to be truly angry. "Don't pick up my body!"

"But you've got such a nice body," Beck told her through laughter, waving her 'corpse' in the air. "Oh yes, twerk for me."

"No one wants to twerk for you, Beck!"

"I'm sure people do," Beck replied calmly. "Hey guys, if you wanna twerk for me – or you want Jade to twerk for me – hit me up on Twitter at GotBeck with the hashtag #twerkforbeck."

Rolling her eyes, Jade said, "I'm not gonna twerk for him."

"You should!" Beck told her brightly.

"I think that's enough of this game – Beck's going a bit delusional in the head," she said, smirking. "So yeah, leave a like if you enjoyed and remember to unsubscribe from GotBeck for harassing me."

"Excuse me!" Beck spluttered.

"Bye," Jade sang, and Tori and André sung their farewells as well. Stopping the recording, Jade sighed. "So, is there any other game you guys wanna play?"

"Actually, I'm getting tired – it's 3 am here," Tori said with a yawn. The young girl was currently living overseas in London, which meant while it was only 10 pm for Jade, it was 5 hours later for Tori. "I think I'm gonna go to bed, but we should definitely play some more another time. Maybe Prop Hunt next time?"

"I would kick butt at Prop Hunt," Beck said seriously (a claim which Jade highly doubted).

"I think I'm gonna go too, man," André piped up. "I'm gonna go pick up some pizza or something – I'm pretty hungry. But I'll talk to you guys later, yeah? We'll definitely play some Prop Hunt and my team will kill it."

"Cool," Jade said casually. "Talk to you guys later."

"See ya!" Tori and André chirped as they logged off of Skype.

That left Beck and Jade alone again on Skype. Beck broke the silence first, asking, "Hey, so you wanna play some dumb two-player game?"

"Yeah, cause I'll kick your butt at it."

"You and all your lies," Beck replied darkly. "Wanna goof around on Mario Kart? I know you guys played it on the stream, but…"

"I'm always up to kick a guy's butt in Mario Kart."

"We'll see about that."

.

Jade wasn't entirely sure why she put up a fanmail address – but she did, and now she had a big pile of fanmail in front of her. It always astounded her that this many people would take time out of their day to send her a letter, a card, or a gift. She read every single one of them, though – if they could take the time to write it or draw it or buy it, then she could at least take the time to acknowledge it.

The first one she opened was the typical fan letter: "Hi Jade, I love you so much. We're like, long lost cousins or something. We're just alike, down to our bra size. Haha, you inspire me every day." She tried to smile, although the letter was more than a bit creepy, and decided to move on to the next letter.

She pulled out a drawing and smiled despite herself – it was a drawing of her and Beck from TTT, both decked out in camouflage from head to toe, standing back to back. The grumpy-looking drawing version of her said "I hate Canada", while the drawing version of Beck said "but you love me" with a cute little heart. Although she hated the word "adorable", she had to admit it was. She pushed the drawing aside and turned to the letter.

"_Hey Jade,_

_I hope you don't mind that I drew Bade~ It's just s'cute. I hope you enjoy it anyway. You and Beck have the cutest friendship c:_

_Love you and your videos! Your playthrough of Mad Father is, hands down, one of the best. Plus your voice is so ~sexy~. _

_Keep doing what you're doing! :3_

_Katie"_

With a small shake of her head, she picked up the fanart and pinned it to the lonesome bulletin board in her room. She wasn't really fond of decoration, aside from the dead butterfly displays and a few scattered posters. As long as she had her gaming systems, her TV, and her PC, she was fine.

She sifted through some more mail – another corny letter, a card with a weirdly drawn picture of her inside, a plea for her to show her face. Sighing, she shook her head; she had a feeling that everyone would be disappointed if she were to show her face via the Internet.

Pushing herself up, she walked through the lonely house to the refrigerator and opened the door, staring into the white void. She picked up a package of string cheese and searched for the expiration label – did string cheese expire? – before settling on a nice bowl of ice cream. The house seemed even more empty as she sat alone with her ice cream, feeling like a middle-aged housewife with no kids.

Maybe she should get a cat or something – reaffirm her status as a lonely cat lady or whatever. Beck had a cute little dog he'd named Mia, so he wasn't quite as lonely. Wait – how had she come back to the subject of Beck again?

Beck was just a good friend, she told herself. Just because practically everyone shipped them and thought that they were into each other didn't mean they _were_. It was a friendly thing, and besides, they'd only been friends for a few months. The awkwardness that sometimes settled in would go away with time. _Right_?

With a roll of her eyes, she navigated to his USlap page and checked the TTT video. His description made her laugh:

_We decided to try out this TTT thing. :D_

_USlappers up in hurr:_

_André (PianoMAndré)  
Tori (ToriVegaDocious)  
aaaand Jade (ScissorLuv) #twerkforbeck_

She gave a small laugh, wondering if anyone had actually posted that hashtag or if his stupid efforts had been in vain. Probably not – Beck was a bit of a fail when it came to stuff like that.

She glanced down at the comments, laughing when she saw the most liked comment:

_Notice how distracted Beck and Jade get with each other. ;D #Bade_

…it was only getting worse.

.

One thing she hadn't counted on, though, was how much being associated with Beck would boost her popularity. One minute, it seemed, she was barely at 900,000 subscribers, and the next she was nearing on one million. _One million _– the number seemed unfathomable to her. One million people had taken the time to watch her stupid little videos and then pressed the subscribe button. One million live, breathing people, all with lives and preferences and…ships.

She didn't know how to thank her fans but with another playthrough, this time of a very intriguing game – Catherine. She'd heard a lot of good things about the game, although it did seem like a pretty challenging puzzle game. One thing about Jade, though – she was always up for a challenge.

As she booted the game up, she thought again about how far she'd come. With every subscriber, with every view, she was making more cash, making the likelihood of her having to get a normal, boring job much less. And although she did like earning her subscribers herself, she couldn't protest against this kind of attention, so she'd have to thank Beck later.

The title screen loaded at last and she began a new game, immediately fascinated by the protagonist, Vincent, and his clingy girlfriend Katherine – who reminded her a bit of herself, although she hoped she'd never be that bad. The first time Catherine appeared on the screen, though, she immediately took a little bit of a disliking to her. Something wasn't right about her, she thought.

After playing for a little bit, she decided to turn off the games and doze off to sleep, but the boy who'd been invading her thoughts similarly invaded her dreams. In the dream, he was lounging in front of her, staring at her with big brown eyes. "Jade," he said breathily, and she realized at once that he'd seen her – her physical appearance, the part of her she'd hoped to hide from the world.

"I-I'm sorry," she stuttered, something that scarcely ever happened. "I know I'm –"

"You're beautiful," he replied, and his voice was so alluringly seductive that she was immediately drawn to it. She stood before him, feeling small, and waited as he leaned down to her, about to –

She woke up in a puddle of wetness. _Ugh_. She didn't sweat! Nor did she bow down to any man, much less Beck freaking Oliver, 'king' of the weird section of the Internet. She didn't let anyone make her feel that way. But her body was still weak and her heart was still pounding and she thought that if the dream happened in real life she'd probably let him kiss her and that terrified her.

Feeling more determined, she got out of the bed and went to wash her face. After returning, though, she saw that she had a new message on Steam.

**New Steam Message**

**GotBeck: Hey Jade :D I saw you posted a new vid and I thought Id watch. You seemed a little off thou. Is everything ok?**

**ScissorLuv: Yeah, I'm fine. Don't worry about it, Beck.**

**GotBeck: You dont seem fine D: **

**ScissorLuv: Seriously, it's okay. I was just tired. Better now though.**

**GotBeck: Good. Idk what Id do without my new dude.**

**ScissorLuv: Yeah. Whatever that means.**

He confused her, she thought. Calling her a "dude" was a clear indication that he thought of her as no more than a friend, yet when he spoke to her sometimes it seemed as though he was flirting. Was he interested? Was he not?

Was _she _interested?

That, she thought, was the real question.

.

**New Steam Message**

**KittyKitCat: Heyyy, Jade C: I was thinking maybe you could invite Beck to stream with us next Saturday? It'd be fuuuun. He seems super nice. :3**

_Oh, crap, _Jade thought. It seemed as though it was time for Beck to meet the friends.

.

**A/N: well this sucks.**

**Also I'm laughing bc like one person got my references and I know this chapter may be confusing so I'm going to post links to the videos referenced. Take out the spaces.**

**(TTT: When the Beat Drops You Die: www. Youtube watch?v=V25aWzgAA_Y**

**TTT: Going Through the Stargate?:** ** www. Youtube watch?v=yXPlZLGhBeo**

**Cry Plays: Catherine: www. Youtube watch?v=zke7gerUcck&list=PLeqwXTaiY-OwL70JNiDJ01OuUnr4mOvRj)**

**Also TTT is Trouble in Terrorist Town, a game in which all players are terrorists and one is selected to be the "traitor". The traitor's goal is to kill all other players; the other players' goal is to find out who the terrorist is and kill him/her. **

**Sorry if the chapter/story sucks I'm tired ya know. But I tried my best. **

**Please leave a review if you enjoyed! It helps me to know what you guys want or like and to be able to update faster. Plus I reply to all of them that aren't on Anon. Speaking of: to the Anon reviewer that didn't want Tori in the fic, I don't normally do love triangles, so you have nothing to worry about in that respect. Tori's not a threat to Bade at all… trust me. ;) **

**Next Chapter: the one person who hasn't been in this fic yet, some more GTA, Prop Hunt, and the confrontation of feelings.**


	3. Chapter 3

Maelstrom

_n:__a situation or state of confused movement or violent turmoil._

_Part 3: June 2013_

There was something wrong with her good friend – well, not that she hadn't known it before, but it was becoming even more apparent. For example, ever since she'd informed Cat that Beck would, in fact, be attending this stream, the girl hadn't stopped giggling like some sort of maniac. _Seriously_.

"It's like, an otp kind of deal," Cat informed her helpfully. "You'll understand one day."

Jade simply stared at her tiny friend, wondering what in the world went through her head sometimes – and hoping that she wouldn't scare Beck to death. Sure, Beck was enthusiastic and loud, but he wasn't Cat-level. _No one_ was Cat level.

Once he joined the call, though, Cat let out a squeal and Jade immediately groaned. "Sorry for… her," she sighed. "Guys, this is Beck. Beck, this is Cat, Robbie, Moose, and Sinjin."

Cat squeaked out a 'hi', Moose greeted him with a stereotypical 'hey, man', while Robbie and Sinjin simply said 'hello'.

"Hey, nice to meet you guys," Beck said in return. "Thanks for letting me join your stream!"

"Yeah, whatever," Jade cut in, before he could go on and gush about how it was such an honor – which, considering his amount of subscribers, it really wasn't. "So we're thinking about starting off with some Draw My Thing, then attempting to play GTA V online, doing some GMod Sandbox, and later a little bit of viewer's choice. You down for that?"

"Sounds great," Beck said cheerfully.

"Yeaaaah," Cat replied cheekily, "as long as Jade's here."

Jade muffled a groan as her other friends laughed. This was going to be a _long _night.

But they managed to start streaming and get on Omgpop nonetheless, all of them in the same Draw My Thing room. Moose cut in. "Just so you know, I'm beast at this."

Jade laughed. "Last time we played, you lost to Sinjin."

"I know things," Sinjin replied ominously. "That is no dishonor."

The game started then, and the first one to draw was Moose, which Jade figured would be interesting – especially when the thing he was drawing resembled, well, a male part. Beck, however, was less careful about it. "Is that a dick, man?"

"No!" Moose spluttered. "Just let me finish drawing! I swear, when I'm done, this is gonna be a regular Picasso or something."

Jade highly doubted that, however, and was proven to be right when the time ran out and no one had guessed correctly. "It was a finger!" Moose groaned, sounding disgraced.

"Well, it didn't _look_ like it," Robbie replied smartly.

"And your head doesn't look like a human's, but I don't complain about that, now do I?" Moose shot back, laughing a little bit.

"That's offensive!" Robbie complained.

"Get used to it," Jade told him, realizing it was her turn to draw. The word was _Cat, _ironically enough, and she laughed quietly to herself before she began to draw. Instead of choosing to draw a conventional and boring cat, however, she drew her small redheaded friend, exaggerating her eyes to make her look like a badly drawn anime character. When Cat saw the velvety red hair, she gasped. "Is that _me_?!"

"You might want to not yell out what the answer is, Cat," Robbie said with a laugh as he and the others guessed correctly. Well, everyone except Beck.

"I don't get it," Beck whined. "What's the answer? How do you all know this?"

The timer ran out then, though, and the world was revealed. Beck immediately began to laugh. "Well, that was a really bad drawing of Cat!"

Cat gasped. "That was a bad drawing of me?"

"No, Cat," Jade responded in an annoyed tone, shooting daggers at Beck though she knew he couldn't see them. It was far too easy to set the redhead off, and she was not in the mood to deal with a crying Cat.

"I'm drawing next!" Cat yelped, causing Jade to sigh in relief. "Oh, the word's _seashell!_ Wait, was I supposed to say that out loud?"

"No, Cat, you weren't," Moose said, chuckling.

"Forget I said that," Cat muttered quietly, but that didn't stop all of them from quickly typing in the word before she even got a chance to type. Pouting, Cat said, "Phooey."

The worst actual 'drawer' so far, though, was Robbie. His drawing was meant to be a goat, but the way he drew it, it looked to be a cross between a horse and a frog – rather disturbing and no one got it, which made Robbie embarrassed. "I tried my best!" he protested.

"That's the sad part," Jade said with a laugh. "I pity all your art teachers."

"Oh, yeah? Well I pity my art teachers too," Robbie chuckled.

"Three-way tie," Moose groaned. "Between me, Jade, and… Sinjin?"

"I'm a beast at this," Sinjin informed them in his usual disturbing voice.

"Oh, yeah? Well, I'm gonna be a beast too," Beck said.

He wasn't. Perhaps it was because his drawings suck or because he could only really guess when Cat squealed out the answer (which was more often than not), but Beck really sucked at the game, and it amused Jade half to death – especially when he muttered things under his breath after narrowly missing the window to type in the word. Oh, Beck.

So he seemed pleased when Jade announced they were moving on to the next game, GTA V. All six of them were going to attempt to play together, which Jade thought would certainly be interesting, especially since GTA wasn't Cat's kind of game. All of them got online though nonetheless.

"So I say we all try to get in one car," Moose said conversationally.

"That's dumb as hell, man," Beck said, but finished it up with, "I like it."

Jade nearly facepalmed. These guys could be such idiots sometimes.

"I got a big car," Sinjin said ominously, and though it sounded creepy, all five of them flocked over to where he was. He did, in fact, have a pretty nice car; Jade wasn't interested enough to know the name, but she hopped in nonetheless before they could leave her behind.

Of course, Beck hopped in beside her, making her sigh – the fanfictions were going to be raging, she was sure. "Hey there babe," he said with a wink.

"Don't call me that," Jade retorted.

"Omg Bade!" Cat squealed.

"Stab me with a knife," was all Jade could get out as Sinjin began to drive off.

"You left me behind!" Robbie screamed frantically, his character chasing behind the car.

"Just get a car and catch up with us," Moose said, sounding a little irritated. "You'll get there eventually."

So Robbie was offended, Moose was a little irritated, Cat was hyped up on Bade, Sinjin was creepy, and Beck was probably concerned that these were Jade's friends. But Jade? Jade just laughed. Nothing like a typical night with the guys (and Cat).

They drove until they reached the strip club, which absolutely scandalized Cat but sent the guys into peals of laughter, especially when Jade got annoyed and started shooting up the club. "Now the guards are attacking us," Moose complained.

"You're just jealous that they have better boobs than you," Beck mocked.

"That," Jade said through gritted teeth, "is a lie."

A small laugh came from Beck. "I know."

"I think we need a helicopter," Moose cut in.

"How the heck do you suggest we get one of those?" Jade inquired.

"I know a cheat," Beck muttered to himself, pressing down some buttons before a helicopter spawned out of thin air. "There. See? MLG, man."

"I say we all get in so we can go up high and then I can push you all out. It'd be really amusing," Jade said sardonically.

"Or we can just fly to the top of a building and party there?" Beck asked meekly.

Jade rolled her eyes. "What fun is that?"

They played around on GTA for a bit longer, getting shot by gangs, stealing cars, and torturing each other (okay, so that one _may_ have been mostly Jade). After that, they decided to move on and play some viewer suggested games until they all grew too tired to continue. They bid their fans good night and logged off of stream, Jade's mind boggling at the amount of viewers – more than she'd ever had, to be sure, and all because of Beck. Whether that was a good thing or not, she still hadn't decided yet.

Her Steam beeped again with a new message.

**New Steam Message**

**Beck: **Thanks for having me on the stream tonight again :)

**Jade**: Any time, I guess. Hope my friends didn't completely turn you off or whatever.

**Beck: **Nooo your friends are awesome! I wanna play with all you guys again sometime. Too funny!

**Jade**: Oh. Can't say I'm not surprised.

**Beck: **Please, theyre your friends and you have remarkably good taste ! Anyway good night Jade. Sleep tight ;)

**Jade:** Whatever you say, Beck. Good night.

.

Jade was not fond of many social networking site. TheSlap was full of 'friends' she hadn't spoken to in five years, posting about their 'hubbies' and their new babies (ew, Jade thought to herself). Instapic was jampacked with selfies – and considering Jade had yet to show her face to anyone on the Internet, _that_ was a definite no. Slap + - was there even a point to it? Jade hadn't yet found one, though through USlap she'd been automatically signed up for it. Tumblr, while occasionally amusing, always took things too far. But the worst of them all was Twitter, with its nonsensical hashtags and incessant updates. Seriously, who needed to know what you were doing every _five seconds_?

So when Beck dared suggest she join it, she was outraged to say the least.

"I have nothing to tweet," she informed him stubbornly via their Skype call. "I hate Twitter."

"C'mon, it's fun!" he protested, grinning at her – the idiot had taken to turning on his camera during their calls, presumably so that she could see his 'sexy' face. She begged to differ, of course, and stuck with just voice on her end. He continued by saying, "We can tweet each other."

"Why?" she deadpanned. "We already Skype, Steam message, post dumb comments on each other's USlap videos, and occasionally I go on Tumblr to complain about you and your annoying tendency to play games I want to play before me so that I get a thousand comments about copying you. Why do we need Twitter as well?"

"The Bade fans'll love it," Beck said, cocky smirk splayed across his face. "And besides, your fans will love it! It's so much easier to interact with fans and update on there – so much less spam, you know? It helps me out as well."

A wave of guilt crashed over Jade. Like every USlapper, she'd started off replying to every single comment on her videos, but as the comment count neared the thousands, she'd found it impossible to keep up and had basically given up on replying altogether. Her fans would, in fact, be thrilled to have this new medium to connect with Jade on – and she did need a way to show them how much she appreciated their support. _Ugh_, she thought to herself. She didn't even know who she was anymore.

But, with a long, deep sigh, she said, "Fine. But if someone took my username, I'm throwing a fit, you hear me?"

Beck's smirk simply grew even wider. "Don't even worry about it, Jade. I had a feeling you'd agree, so I went ahead and saved your username for you."

"…screw you."

.

**Jade** (a) ScissorLuv 12m  
So (a)GotBeck may have convinced me to join Twitter. Whatever. Call me a noob and you're dead.

**Beck** (a)GotBeck 10m  
(a)ScissorLuv N00b.

**Jade** (a)ScissorLuv 7m  
(a)GotBeck Again I say, screw you.

**Bader3** (a)JadeFan33 5m  
(a)ScissorLuv (a)GotBeck i bet u want to don't u jade? ;)

.

"You neglected to mention that the army of Bade shippers is prevalent on Twitter as well."

Andre guffawed. Beck snorted. Jade wanted to strangle them both.

"Hey, what can I say? We're irresistible," Beck said breezily, probably winking at her – though, given the three way call, she couldn't actually see him.

"I ship it," Andre chimed in.

"Whatever," Jade griped, wishing she could virtually strangle the two idiots on the other ends of the call. "You two are worse than Cat, honestly."

"Cat's pretty kawaii," Andre so helpfully informed her.

"Please don't tell me you have a crush on Cat," Jade groaned, imagining Andre cradling the tiny redhead and shuddering.

"Nah, man," Andre replied casually. "I got my eyes on this other girl. She's into video games and music and she's on Youtube – so basically, she's exactly my type. _And_, as an added bonus, she's hot."

"Score, dude," Beck chuckled.

"Ugh, you two are such obnoxious straight guys," Jade complained, rolling her eyes at them. And they were so shallow too – though Jade couldn't help but acknowledge that she could appreciate good looks (and developed muscles) on a guy as well.

"Don't be jealous," Andre retorted. "Not everyone can be half of a famous otp like you and Beck. I gotta make my own way in this world, man."

"You and Beck have some hardcore shippers as well," Jade shot back to Andre. "Seems like the yaoi fans have infiltrated, yeah?"

"Hell yeah," Beck replied, laughing. "They know a good bromance when they see one." He then began to make kissy noises that Andre quickly reciprocated. _Honestly_. Sometimes it was like she was dealing with five year olds rather than guys her age.

"Are we gonna play this damn game or not?" Jade griped, feeling awkward but somewhat amused.

"Sure," Beck said with another laugh. "I made the tournament, so I'm just waiting on you two to join."

Reluctantly, Jade did so, not feeling incredibly enthusiastic about this game to say the least. When she joined the room, though, she found herself laughing. "Hey Beck, are you wearing a tutu?"

"Maybe…" Beck trailed off, laughing quietly.

"So we've got a pirate, a fairy princess… and me." She smirked, not knowing how to describe her character. The thing had a pair of purple wings, a black dress, a pirate hat, and a mustache. Exactly her type.

"Lookin' hot, Jade," Beck said, making her roll her eyes.

"Dude. You _know_ people are gonna take that out of context and make gifs of it for tumblr," Jade replied with a groan.

"Let them," Beck answered, laughing. "At least they'll have something to entertain them for the next few weeks."

Jade rolled her eyes – Beck could be _such _a dick when he wanted to be – but signed into the game, Bomberman Ultra, nonetheless. The three characters appeared on screen then, all of them in different corners, and began laying their bombs. Andre immediately began to laugh. "Yo, this is like that game they used to have on Omgpop. Balloono or whatever."

"Yeah!" Beck said in recognition. "Pretty sure I beat Jade in that game as well."

"Did not," Jade shot back. "You'll see; I'll be the champion of this one."

The three creatures scuttled around the screen, blowing up the blocks with the bombs in a frantic attempt to get at each other. Soon, Beck had himself cornered by a bomb, and he let out a deep sigh. "I may have just screwed myself."

"Nice job, Becky," Jade teased, half-smiling at the fact that now she only had one enemy to take out –Andre, who was approaching her with quickening speed. _Great_, she thought to herself. _Just great_.

"Look how fast I am!" Andre exclaimed, dropping a bomb near her that she quickly scurried away from.

"Hope you guys are enjoying yourselves," Beck griped.

"Aw, don't be a sore loser," Jade said, smirking. "It's not our fault that we're the true gamers here."

"Yeah, do you even bomb, man?" Andre said, cracking up at his own stupid pun – and his enthusiastic laughter made Jade laugh as well, which simply made Beck even grumpier. Oh, well. "Okay, let's do this," Andre continued, laying more bombs on the ground near her, but she scurried into a corner. Realizing he'd trapped himself, Andre attempted to join her – but the game glitched out and he died. "_NO!" _ he exclaimed loudly. Jade simply laughed.

"I don't like this game," Beck whined.

"You're just mad because you suck at this game, _baby_," Jade said with a sneer, knowing she'd probably set off the fanfiction writers also. Oh, well.

"I do not!" Beck protested. "So I'm just gonna go ahead and start the next game. I'm so gonna win this one, man."

Andre and Jade both laughed before simultaneously saying, "We'll see about that."

"You will see!" Beck said, sounding offended – which just made Jade and Andre laugh even harder.

.

**Jade** (a)ScissorLuv 17m  
May have just demolished (a)GotBeck and (a)KeyboardDre in Bomberman Ultra. This is what real gaming looks like. #gogetgood

**Beck** (a)GotBeck 15m  
(a)ScissorLuv (a)KeyboardDre proof or it didn't happen!

**Jade** (a)ScissorLuv 10m  
(a)GotBeck (a)KeyboardDre Oh yeah, the three recordings we took simultaneously don't count. You've got a brain. Use it. ;)

**Ya Boy Andre** (a)KeyboardDre 7m  
(a)ScissorLuv (a)GotBeck that winky face though, Beck. She wants the D. #bade

**Jade** (a)ScissorLuv 4m  
(a)KeyboardDre (a)GotBeck Shut the hell up, Andre.

.

For some reason, Jade's downloading of the Twitter app (yes, okay, she'd sunken to a new low) came with a whole new set of problems. Like somehow she'd accidentally subscribed to Beck's tweets, which meant she had them sent to her phone – and with her having no idea how to turn them off, that proved to be somewhat of an issue, especially with Google being particularly unhelpful on the subject. After a few days of his incessant tweeting, though, she grew used to it, and even began to enjoy his stupid tweets – especially when they were directed at her. So she wasn't surprised when her phone buzzed again, indicating a new tweet from the devil himself.

**Beck **(a)GotBeck 14 secs ago  
Whats up dudes? Thinkin about doing a lil giveaway on my Thursdays with beck video today. :P use the hashtag #gotbeckgiveaway to enter!

She rolled her eyes with a little half-smile. She'd known about Beck's Thursdays with Beck videos for ages; they were vlogs, unlike the majority of his gaming videos, and typically involved some sort of fan interaction – whether it be Q&As, shoutouts, or Mail Time. The latter was her favorite – especially after some kind of especially talented fan had created a Jade Doll and sent it to him, which he immediately tried to lick (completely disgusting, she thought, wrinkling up her nose). And he got quite a bit of Bade fanart – which, contrary to many people's vehement belief, she actually didn't mind. The amount of work put into those drawings made them gorgeous to her selective eyes.

A giveaway, however, was something entirely knew on Thursdays with Beck, and something almost unprecedented for a USlapper to do by themselves, simply because of the amount of work it required to be done fairly. She wondered what in the world Beck was giving away. His vague tweet had detailed almost nothing about the giveaway aside from the obligatory hashtag.

An idea struck her then, and she gave an evil half-smile as she opened a new tweet. There were no rules, so there were certainly no rules to prohibit her from entering. And in situations like the current one, well, why not?

**Jade **(a)ScissorLuv 10s  
(a)GotBeck #gotbeckgiveaway Points for creativity. Also this giveaway better entail some sort of monetary compensation for my tweeting this.

Within a couple of minutes, she had a response.

**Beck** (a)GotBeck 2 min  
(a)ScissorLuv as always I appreciate your enthusiasm Jade. ;) however another compliment or 2 might increase your likelihood of winning!

**Jade** (a)ScissorLuv 1 min  
(a)GotBeck You have all right hair. Could stand for a haircut or two, but it's decent. Am I doing this right? #gotbeckgiveaway

**Beck** (a)GotBeck 40s  
(a)ScissorLuv getting close ;P results will be up later today. Watch my new video to be a #trufan!

She laughed at Beck's antics, but thought nothing of their usual banter and returned to editing her playthrough of The Walking Dead. Although the game was beyond amazing, it had made her rather emotional – _why _did everyone have to die? – and being the hardcore USlapper that she was, she had to keep up her stellar reputation. That meant no teary eyes, even if some of her favorite characters were killed off. She had to stay strong.

As she edited a segment of Lee walking (did he honestly have to walk so dramatically slow?), she felt her phone buzz again. Of course, it was yet another tweet from Beck, this one announcing in his typical offhanded way that he'd uploaded his Thursdays with Beck video. Curiously, she decided to take a break from editing to watch.

Immediately, Beck's face flooded her screen as he grinned. "What's up, dudes? My name is Beck and I'm here with another Thursdays with Beck video! This week I decided to take some suggestions. First off, you dudes suggested that I… take off my shirt." After reading this, he glanced up at the camera for a moment, giving the audience a confused glance. "Whatever you dudes want, I guess," he said, slowly unbuttoning his plaid shirt – and though Jade thought she ought to look away, she couldn't peel her eyes from the screen. The video didn't show much, though, just the top half of his chest, which was admittedly evenly tan and muscular and therefore very attractive in her eyes. _Damn_. She had to stop thinking crap like that.

"So now that I've got this shirt, I figured I might as well do a little giveaway. I'm gonna go tweet this out…" he muttered, and his fingers were heard clicking furiously against the keyboard. "Done. Now, let me pull up my feed."

His chosen hashtag showed up on screen then, and the tweets seemed to be moving incredibly fast. He stared at the camera, eyes wide as if to show how overwhelmed he was, and then clicked off of it. "Maybe I won't do it that way," he told the audience with a grin. "I'm gonna do some randomizing techniques –" he pressed a couple of buttons, and a screen popped up that said _Genius Beck Utilizing Techniques_ for a few seconds before Beck's face showed up again. "Okay, so I have my winner. This lovely shirt right here goes to Jade or ScissorLuv on Twitter. Congrats, Jade! Look, I'm even gonna sign this chiz for you." He smirked, whipping out a Sharpie and scrawling his name across it. "I'll be sending you my shirt via the express mail," he finished with a wink.

_Screw him_, Jade thought, anger and embarrassment and chagrin and amusement rushing through her in equal parts, but she couldn't help but laugh nonetheless. There was simply something so ludicrous about the idea of Beck sending her his shirt. Like, what was she supposed to do with it? Smell it? Burn it? Certainly not lick it.

She rolled her eyes, pressing the play button to watch the rest of the video.

"And before you dudes get all up in arms about me playing favorites, don't even worry about it. I'm doing a real giveaway next week with a swagged out pair of Hollywood Arts headphones, so I decided to think of a creative way to announce it for you dudes. It's a partnership thing with USlap – I won't even get to decide; it's totally random. But I'm excited to be able to do this for you dudes! You'll be able to enter online starting next Monday, so definitely check that out."

"Thanks for that suggestion though, dudes, and Jade, I'm serious – this shirt is coming your way. Anyway, next up on this week's episode of Thursdays with Beck – interview with my dogs."

She paused it, thinking that was enough of the Vlogs for one day, and simply laughed again to herself. Sometimes she thought that Beck was so utterly and completely weird that one day he'd do something to weird her out to the point that she'd dump him as a friend altogether, yet that day had still not come, nor did she see it ever coming. He'd quickly become one of her best friends. They could play games together, joke around with each other, rage at each other, and still be good at the end of the day. It was a chill, natural relationship – and Jade loved every minute of it.

Even when she was getting sweaty shirts in the mail.

Speaking of that.

**Jade** (a)ScissorLuv 2m  
(a)GotBeck I hope you know I'm burning that shirt. Like, the moment it arrives. I won't even hesitate.

**Beck** (a)GotBeck 2s  
(a)ScissorLuv Yeah right Jade ;D we all know youre gonna love on that shirt man. Couldnt imagine givin it to anyone else.

.

The package arrived two weeks later, and to say that Jade was surprised was an understatement. Even though he'd said he would send her his shirt, she hadn't exactly believed him, thinking it was probably just a joke. But nope – the package sat on her front step with a return label addressed from Beck Oliver. Oh, great.

She opened it hesitantly, finding the plaid shirt (which had an odd, musky smell about it) and a note.

_Jade,_

_Hope you enjoy this ;D Dont lie, I know you will. And youll think of me every time you wear it._

_Love and Kisses,_

_Beck_

Ew. She wrinkled up her nose, but laughed nonetheless – he was such a weirdo sometimes. Rather than put it on, though, she logged onto Steam and shot him a quick message.

**Jade**: Got the shirt. Didn't actually think you were serious.

**Beck**: Would I lie to you? Dont answer that. But do you enjoy? ;D

**Jade**: …sure.

**Beck**: Put it on weirdo!

**Jade**: I'm gonna have to pass on that one.

**Beck**: Youre missing out!

**Jade: **Maybe later.

**Beck: **Awesome. Hey I was gonna ask you – do you know of a girl named Trina? I know we know a lot of the same people so I thought Id ask. :D

**Jade**: Yeah, Tori's sister. She's a fashion vlogger, right? HottieGurlTrina?

**Beck**: Thats the one.

**Jade**: Why?

**Beck: **I dunno, she just messaged me on YouTube wanting to talk so I thought Id ask if you knew anything about her.

**Jade**: Yeah, sure. She's got a high opinion of herself and isn't really talented, but other than that I guess she's okay.

**Beck:** Wow, blunt much?

**Jade: **Always.

**Beck: **Fair enough. Ill let you get back to admiring my shirt. :D

She rolled her eyes, logging off of Steam and wondering what the heck Trina had messaged Beck about. The more irritating of the Vega sisters was a huge flirt, so that might've had something to do with it – but that was something she didn't even want to think about. She imagined Beck watching her videos, in which she showed off her fairly decent face and body, and immediately thought of how he'd never even seen her face in comparison. He might think she's hot and message her back; they might start dating; they might start a vlog channel together and then Beck wouldn't even play with Jade anymore –

_Stop it_, she chided herself. After all, what did she care if Beck dated Trina? What did she care if Beck dated anyone? He was free to date who he wanted, to fall in love with anyone he wanted, to do whatever he wanted – because he wasn't Jade's and technically, they weren't dating. And for whatever reason, the thought made her sick.

_Please find her as annoying as I do_, Jade pleaded internally.

But, all things considering, she assumed the worst – and, naturally, buried her head in Beck's shirt, inhaling that musky scent. Oh god, she was so screwed.

.

**A/N: This isn't too great of a chapter – but keep in mind that the majority of the first part was written on receipt paper while I was at work. So. Yeah. Hopefully it's not too sucky.**

**The review count went up by a lot last chapter, so to thank you guys, here's another chapter fairly soon. Keep it up; your reviews really do encourage me to keep writing! Plus the people that get the references and parallels really amuse me. I failed at replying to reviews last chapter, but I'll seriously try this chapter. Another thing - fanfiction doesn't allow the at sign so (a) will have to do. :) **

**Also, with the whole Trina situation? Try to keep in mind my comments from last chapter. Love triangles aren't my thing. However, I have no qualms about keeping relationships interesting.  
**

**(REFERENCED VIDEOS:**

**EVERYTHING EXPLODES! – www. youtube watch?v=s6Jf-WfDQoM  
FRIDAYS WITH PEWDIEPIE - www. Youtube results?search_query=fridays+with+pewdiepie )**

**Next chapter: Prop Hunt (for real! Maybe), jealousy, the reading of fanfiction, and probably some other stuff.**


	4. Chapter 4

Maelstrom

_n:a situation or state of confused movement or violent turmoil._

_Part 4: July 2013_

Jade hadn't paid much attention to the older Vega girl before, but now, it seemed, she was everywhere. Her videos popped up as 'suggested videos' on USlap. Her face showed up among the icons of her Twitter followers. She was even prevalent in the dumb, overly 'feminized' magazines Jade thumbed through while waiting for her hairdresser. If she was even a little bit superstitious, she would probably think she was being haunted by the conceited, vapid girl.

In a vain attempt to comprehend the love this girl received, Jade watched a few of her videos, but she saw few redeeming qualities in this girl. Sure, she was relatively attractive, but she had the brains of a goldfish, the elevated self-importance of a young child, and the personality of an obnoxious hyena. So why, Jade asked herself, would Beck prefer _Trina_? There was nothing good in Trina that was not equally evident in herself, right? But, perhaps the more important question, why did she care? Even though she told herself repeatedly she didn't (and shouldn't) care about what Beck thought of Trina, that Beck was just a friend and could, accordingly, date whoever he wanted, she knew the truth – that Beck, the most popular USlapper of all time, had grown on her to a point that her emotions had become inexplicably intertwined with his. And that – beyond anything – terrified her.

Like her "USlap counterpart" , she'd never really been very open, particularly with her emotions. The mere thought of a relationship, per se, scared her to death. And yet here she was, with a "crush" on her fellow USlapper, feeling pretty damn pathetic at this point. After all, it wasn't like he would ever like her back.

She groaned internally, wondering at what point she had become a forlorn little schoolgirl. Just terrific.

.

Beck (a)GotBeck  
#WCW goes to my pal (a)ScissorLuv. check out this gorgeous fanart of her. ;D (attached photo)

Jade (a)ScissorLuv  
(a)GotBeck Yeah, that's great and all, but check out this one. No one's as fabulous as you, sir. (attached photo)

.

"Jade?"

Jade blinked, snapping herself back into reality. "Oh, sorry. I just woke up."

"It's 6:00," Tori oh-so-helpfully pointed out.

"Yeah, my sleep schedule's all screwed up," Jade answered, biting back the vicious insults that threatened to pour out. "Haven't been able to sleep lately for whatever reason."

"We felt you, dawg," Andre reassured her. "We just wanted to say we're switching maps – going for a desert setting this time. Should be fun."

"Cool," Jade responded, trying (and failing) to sound enthusiastic.

"Your enthusiasm astounds me as always, Jade," Beck teased with a laugh as the game loaded, switching to the 'preparing' mode. As always when the gang played Trouble in Terrorist Town, Beck started in with his ridiculous rules. "Everyone who's not a traitor, get on the car."

"It's not even done preparing yet!" Andre spluttered. "We don't even know who the traitor _is_ yet!"

"Doesn't matter," Beck replied confidently. "If you're not on the car, we have the right to assume that you're a traitor and, of course, eliminate you."

"Like hell I'm going on a car with all of you without a gun!" Andre shot back.

"Why do you need a gun?" Jade asked, laughing – she'd snagged a gun at the very beginning and joined Beck and Tori on the car. "Only traitors need guns."

"I need to protect myself!" Andre protested.

"If you're not on the car in ten seconds, we're going to find you and kill you," Tori warned him ominously. After counting all the way to ten, Andre was still nowhere to be found, so the other three headed off to locate him.

"Where are you, Andre?" Beck sang.

"I'm in this place that looks like a desert," Andre responded with a chuckle. "I can see sand and dust and yellow stuff."

"Helpful," Jade remarked dryly. Given that they were in a desert map, that description matched the majority of the land – and therefore didn't help them at all.

"C'mon, Andre," Tori begged. "Give us a hint or something."

"Yeah, man," Beck joined in, sounding completely unconvincing. "If we find you, we won't kill you or whatever. We just wanna be friends."

Andre snorted. "Yeah, right, like I'll believe that. You think I'm the traitor, but you won't kill me, hm?"

"I'm not gonna lie, Andre," Jade told him, using her 'scary voice'. "If I find you, I'm gonna have to shoot you."

"At least you're honest," Andre grumbled under his breath.

"Fine!" Beck said loudly, interrupting his friends. "Let's all meet up at the car and forgive Andre."

"I don't think I can forgive him," Jade replied darkly.

"Be a team player, Jade," Beck chided her. Reluctantly, she followed the other two back to the car, but as she stood on it, a grenade landed nearby, sending the whole car up in flames. Jade immediately jumped off, pointing her gun at the perpetrator.

"It was YOU!" Jade hissed at Tori, shooting the other girl down – but still, the game did not end. She cursed under her breath. "Who is it then? And _why _did you throw that grenade?"

"It seemed like a good idea at the time," Tori replied sheepishly.

With a roll of her eyes, Jade followed Beck and began shooting him as well – she knew she wasn't the traitor, so it was a half and half chance, right? Beck immediately screamed. "Stop shooting me! I'm not the traitor. Andre is. Those are the rules!"

"Sorry, man," Jade halfheartedly apologized as she tossed a grenade down to where Beck was hidden, killing him on impact. When the game still didn't finish, she sighed loudly. "So it _was _Andre!"

"I told you," Beck reprimanded her. "My rules are always the best, Jade."

Jade, however, was quite low on health from her shootouts with Beck and Tori, and was concerned for the outcome of this match. Her concern proved valid, also, when Andre popped out of nowhere and struck her down with a single shot. The screen flashed, saying "TRAITORS WIN", and Jade groaned.

"This is why we should all follow my rules," Beck informed everyone. "If you'd just listened to me, the traitors wouldn't have won…"

"Shut up, Beck," Jade and Tori both chorused.

They respawned in the midst of the deserted building. "Jade's so sly when she plays this game," Beck commented absently. "It's hard for us to trust her because she always acts like the traitor."

Deciding to simply prove his point further, Jade popped out from the doorway. "Hi."

"See?" Beck yelped. "Silent but deadly, man."

Jade rolled her eyes but, knowing they couldn't see her, said, "Let's all meet up in the market, okay?"

They all agreed and soon after, arrived in the marketplace, the center of the map. True to his nature, Andre immediately picked up a melon, making weird noises before announcing, "I'm selling juicy melons, but I only accept payment via song."

"Don't sing," Jade warned Beck sharply.

"I'll sing!" Tori jumped in, sounding as perky as ever. "Here I am, once again…"

"That's the song of terrorism," Jade muttered sharply, half-smiling at Andre and Beck's resounding laughter.

The group of friends didn't party for long in the marketplace, though, because one of them threw an incendiary grenade. In seconds, the grenade exploded, setting the entire marketplace ablaze. Andre gasped, obviously personally victimized by the choice of weaponry. "My fruit's on fire!"

"I didn't throw that grenade," Tori claimed immediately.

"The fact that you need to clarify that makes me think that it was you – especially since you threw that grenade last time," Jade informed her suspiciously, taking out her gun and firing a few test shots in Tori's direction.

"Ladies," Beck said nervously. "Stop shooting. Let's all just calm down and –"

"She's a traitor, I swear!" Jade interrupted, shooting a few more times at Tori – which, in turn, caused Tori to fire back at her, dangerously decreasing Jade's health.

"Stop shooting!" Andre commanded loudly.

"Whatever," Jade replied, momentarily ceasing fire on the younger Vega. "I'll give you a test, Vega. America, yes or no?"

"No," Tori said flatly as Beck simultaneously answered with a "Yes!"

"She said no! And she's actually American! Definitely a terrorist," Jade informed them all smartly.

"I said yes, so that means I'm not a terrorist," Beck informed the group.

"But you're Canadian," Jade reminded him. "That voids it out." She then proceeded to hunt down and attempt to assassinate the "traitorous" Tori, but was shot down by her instead and killed. Silently, she fumed – how dare she? "Some people just suck," she muttered to herself.

'I'm sorry, Tori, but I'm gonna have to think you're the traitor," Beck said calmly, gunning down the girl. When she, however, proved to be innocent, Beck gave a loud gasp. "It's Jade. It's so Jade."

"I'm dead," Jade told him flatly.

"Then it's Andre?!" Beck gasped again, seeming more and more surprised by this game every round.

Jade laughed. "Sorry, Vega. I totally thought it was you."

"I did throw the grenade," Tori admitted sheepishly.

"Well, that's why then," Jade grumbled. "You've _got _to stop lighting things on fire, pyromaniac."

As they spoke, Beck proceeded to shoot down Andre, leading to a victory for the innocent. Beck chuckled to himself. "It's funny. We never think it's Andre, but it always is."

"Yeah, man," Andre complained. "Do you have it set on some mode where it's always me or what?"

"Nah," Beck replied easily. "So I'm thinking it'll probably end up being Jade next round, since it never seems to be her, but it's hard to tell what with Tori being so sneaky these past few rounds."

"Yeah, she acts so suspicious," Jade agreed.

"Excuse me?!" Tori squeaked, sounding very offended.

"It's true," Beck said with a chuckle. "You know, if there was a zombie apocalypse, we'd have to be like, Tori, you're out. We couldn't trust you in Trouble in Terrorist Town, so we're not trusting you now."

"Can I stay?" Andre inquired hopefully.

"No," Jade said flatly. "You'd just sit around and watch us all massacre each other."

"Easiest way to win when you're always the terrorist, dude," Andre replied, sounding oddly cheerful. "Everyone starts doubting each other and then it turns into a major bloodbath and bam, you automatically win, you feel?"

"Anyway," Beck said, changing the subject from the utter disloyalty of their friends, "let's all meet up at the square, okay?"

"What?" Jade and Tori both inquired.

"Goin' to the square," Andre hummed – it seemed everything had to be music-related with him.

"See, Andre understood," Beck said proudly. "Andre's a smart, talented man."

"I just felt you, dawg," Andre proclaimed.

"Definitely terrorist activity right there," Jade groaned, laughing a little bit to herself – her friends could be so beyond ridiculous sometimes. She was, in fact, the terrorist this round (for once), so she followed Andre to the 'square' and shot him down. His body lay limply in the square, making him laugh, but otherwise he said nothing – much to Jade's delight. Knowing Beck and Tori, they'd never find him.

"I don't know how to get to the square," Beck complained, further proving Jade's point.

"You're the one who wanted to go there in the first place," Tori pointed out with a little sigh.

"I'm in the box," Andre pointed out. "Just chillin' in the box."

Jade rolled her eyes, but took off away from the box, hearing the sound of gunshots in the distance. "Hey!" Beck said. "Stop shooting me, Tori."

"You shot me first!" Tori whined.

Jade ran up behind Beck, who was low on health anyway, and shot him. "It must be Tori," she thought out loud, running up and shooting Tori as well – and then a red banner saying that the traitors win was displayed, making everyone laugh.

"Oh yeah, it must be Tori," Beck mocked.

"Hey, look, I can make the bodies twerk," Jade mused, picking up Tori's body and making it move violently – but then shuddering. "Ew."

"Speaking of twerking…" Beck began.

"Don't even start," she snapped back. "So I tweeted the other day that I was having severe freaking computer issues – which I _was_ – and of course one of Beck's crazy fans was the first response. 'Don't worry about it, just #twerkforbeck!' What if I don't want to, huh?"

"Don't even give me that," Beck replied. "If I tweeted something like that, you'd reply with a smartass response. Remember when I tweeted about my broken screen?"

"Hey! Hey! That was a good reply, though," Jade praised herself.

"But what if I wanted to twerk?" Beck wondered aloud. "What if I'm done making you twerk? What if it's my turn to twerk? What if the world is ready for this?"

"Then just twerk, damn it!" Jade hissed at him.

Immediately, Beck's character on screen began moving violently in something that didn't look much like a twerking motion – but it made Jade laugh nonetheless, especially when Andre appeared out of nowhere and shot him down, making the 'INNOCENT WIN' page display on screen.

"I'm sorry, Miley Cyrus," Andre said, sounding almost regretful, "but you had to be stopped."

"I guess only traitors twerk," Beck said sadly.

.

"I had fun tonight," Jade told Beck, still slightly hungover from the laughter and stupid things that had happened during their game time.

"Me too," Beck replied with a yawn – which made no sense, considering that it was 11 pm there and 2 am where Jade was. "I know you're probably gonna give me a vague answer, but you seemed a little off there tonight – especially in the beginning. Is everything all right?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," Jade replied. "It's been a weird week. Stupid nightmares kept me up and so my sleeping schedule – and accordingly my recording schedule – has been totally off. This is the first video with me in it that's gone up in like, three days. My fans probably hate me."

"Well, at least they'll get a little Bade action," Beck teased.

"Bade killing each other, featuring Andre and Tori," Jade replied darkly. "Our fans are such weird people, I swear."

"I know." She could hear the smile in Beck's voice. "I'm gonna let you try to sleep, all right? You know I'm free, though, if you wanna, you know, talk about what's going on with you or whatever."

"You're so bad at this sappy friendship crap," Jade said with a laugh. "But that's okay. I am too. Night, Becky Boy."

"Night, Jade." She could hear his faint chuckle as she hung up, and she was tempted to take him up on his offer and call right back. But she didn't want to bother him, especially since she knew he wasn't interested in her – Trina, not her, she reminded herself – and so she pulled her body down under the covers. _What the hell had she gotten herself into_.

.

There was something to be said for lazy days, when Jade would get up, make a nice, steaming mug of hot cocoa, and just record the games she enjoyed most. Usually those games varied between The Walking Dead, Catherine, and Corpse Party (which, despite the cute anime feel, was one of the creepiest games she'd ever played – and therefore one of her favorites), but today she just didn't feel like recording any of those, so she decided to waste some time and record a really dumb game. The issue was that she wasn't aware of any pointless yet worthwhile games, so she logged on to Steam to see who was online that she could ask. Tori was away; Andre was offline – most of her friends, in fact, seemed either away or preoccupied, so she went for the only one who was online. Beck.

**New Steam Message**

**Jade: **So, I wanted to record today, but I'm not feeling any of my series right now. Any game you'd recommend for a quick one-time play? Something dumb but sufficiently amusing. Sorry to bother you, btw.

**Beck: **oh please Jade, youre not bothering me at all!

**Beck: **You could always check out lol

**Jade: **Honestly.

**Beck: **Hey I played it before!

**Jade: **Exactly.

**Beck: **Rude! Um I liked Scribblenauts but idk if thats your kind of game. You could always do some GTA, doesnt have to be missions. Theres always the Sims as well. Any kind of Mario game. IDK IM NOT GOOD AT THIS. Oh yeah theres that horror game demo where youre a baby as well :D

**Jade: **Does the baby die?

**Beck: **I forgot…

**Jade: **Maybe I'll give it a try. I hate babies though.

**Beck: **You hate everything ;D

**Jade: **Exactly. Also I swear, if I get a comment about copying you…

**Beck: **Ill take care of 'em. Dont even worry about it Jade.

**Jade: **I won't. But thanks. I guess.

She located the game (Among the Sleep) in the Steam store then and downloaded the demo version, pushing all thoughts of Beck out of her mind as she waited for the game to completely download. When recording, she liked to have a clear mind so she could actually concentrate on the game – though sometimes, when she was sleep-deprived, that strategy completely failed.

The game was actually pretty decent for an indie horror game, but Jade spent most of the time attempting to kill the virtual child – jumping off stacked drawers, trying to fall down the stairs, attempting to climb into the washing machine. Unfortunately, the game wouldn't let her die, which pissed Jade off all the more. She posted the video anyway after some major editing, hoping that she wouldn't get too much –

Luvbeck (a)BeckLuvsM3

(a)ScissorLuv Beck already played Among the Sleep:/ Stop copying him!:/

_Seriously?_

.

Whenever Jade was bored or simply having an off day, she'd browse through her tag on Tumblr to see what kind of crap people were posting. Sometimes, she'd come across gorgeous fanart; other times, the fanart she found needed to be doused in holy water before it would be fit for viewing. Sometimes she'd accidentally stumble across fanfiction, and sometimes she would even read it. And sometimes she'd find the fanfiction to be… amazing.

**New Steam Message**

**Jade:** Dude.

**Jade: **Fanfiction reading please.

**Beck: **Three words I thought Id never hear from you ;D

**Beck: **Link?

**Jade: ** .com

**Jade:** The one called "Bade Fanfiction 2", okay?

**Beck: **…that was just beautiful. I cried three times.

**Jade: **So, you up for this?

**Beck: **Always.

.

**ScissorJade**

So, if you watched the latest fanfiction video, I apologize. But you know you liked it.

Reblog if you cried.

**2,934 notes**

.

"I can't believe you posted that," Jade said with a hiccupping laugh.

"I can't believe people watched it," Beck replied, sounding equally as drowsy.

"People are too easily entertained," Jade said dryly. "Oh, Cat watched and told me to tell you she says "hiiii" and you need to stop by the next stream so she can tell you about bade or whatever in person. Then she did an annoying laugh."

"Thanks for relaying the message," Beck answered, sounding in equal parts amused and confused. "Cat's too far on this ship. I think she needs to take a step off."

"As usual, she tends to take things too far," Jade informed him, giving a long-suffering sigh. "We've been friends for ages though – I've learned to deal with it."

"How'd you two meet, anyway?" Beck asked curiously. "You seem so different – not just you and Cat, but the whole Crew, I guess."

"It's a long story," Jade told him honestly, thinking back to her first interactions with her friends. "I met Cat a while ago, I guess. She messaged me back in the early days of my USlap channel and wanted to know if I'd play some games with her. She seemed friendly enough, I guess, and I wasn't quite as bitter back then, so I agreed. One game session led to another, and I guess I just couldn't escape. Robbie was another victim of Cat's, so little wimp boy joined us as well. Moose, I met through Xbox Live – don't even ask, honestly – and then Sinjin just wormed his way in. That's the short story version."

Beck let out a breath. "Wow, that's a lot. Pretty cool, though. Sometimes I think I'd kill to have a network like yours."

"Shut up," Jade shot back. "You're basically number one on USlap. You've _got _a network."

"Not of friends, I don't," Beck said, sounding slightly embarrassed. "I know, it sounds dumb. It's not like I'm saying I don't _have_ friends. But compared to you, with your stream friends and never ending batch of co-ops, I'm pretty damn lonely."

"That's stupid," Jade told him.

"Thanks?" he inquired, seeming somewhat offended by her outburst.

"No offense," she said, knowing she'd already said something offensive, "but you've got lots of friends, dude. You've got me and Andre and Tori, of course, and then my stream friends don't mind you either, plus all the other USlappers you co-op with. Don't pull that crap with me. You're not alone, at least in that sense." _Plus_, she added mentally, _you have Trina. Or whatever. _

"You take no crap, Jade," Beck said with a laugh. "I love it."

"Yeah, well," Jade replied, somewhat embarrassed, "if I didn't, people would walk all over me."

"Nah," Beck told her. "I think everyone's terrified of you, and not just in the obvious way. You're intimidating, mysterious, talented, and still somehow funny."

"Lies," Jade told him with a half-smile. It was almost as if he was flirting with her, but how -?

"By the way, if any of that Bade stuff ever makes you really uncomfortable, just let me know and I'll lay off," Beck said kindly. "You get kind of quiet or annoyed about that stuff sometimes, and I don't want to face your wrath or anything."

"You'll be facing it anyway, Becky Boy," she told him with a grin, "especially if we play anything competitive, because I'm going to crush you like a bug."

"That's impossible!" Beck spluttered. "I'm so good at multiplayer games – well, some of the time. Speaking of multiplayer games, though, Sam wanted to see about getting a group together to play Worms, and she asked me to ask you."

"She couldn't have asked me herself?" Jade said with a chuckle. She and Sam had been friends for a while now; they fed off of each other's dark sense of humor and had done two-player co-ops together fairly often, especially with pointless games like GTA and COD (despite the fact that both strongly disliked the game).

"She's just being lazy, I'm sure," Beck pointed out. This, Jade thought, was true; the odd Let's Player was known for being notoriously lazy. "We were doing some 3-player crap with Andre a while back and she brought it up, ya know?"

"Oh, cool," Jade said, smirking a little bit. The thing that these morons didn't know was that she was quite good at Worms. She'd played it often, especially on her streams, and knew all the pros and cons of the weapons, plus strategies to kill more worms than the other teams. Basically, she would probably crush all the other players in a few moves.

"I've never played before," Beck said sheepishly.

And that confirmed it.

For once, Jade was pretty excited for this competition.

.

That was, until she learned the teams.

"So you and Jason against me and Beck?" Jade yelped.

"Yeah," Sam replied sheepishly. "It's not like Jason and I have much experience, either."

Jason was one of Sam's friends and a fairly popular USlapper, and since Beck had invited Jade – or vice versa – it made sense for Sam to invite a friend. And, Jade supposed, it made sense for that person to be Sam's teammate as well. However, that meant she was stuck with Beck – which first of all meant she couldn't compete against him, and second of all meant that she was stuck with a beginner. She sighed loudly. "Fine. But Beck, you better listen to me about how to play."

"Whatever, Jade," Beck said, sounding a little too mischievous for Jade's liking. "Start the tournament thingie already."

"I'm dreading this before it even begins," Jade said, sighing melodramatically.

The worms, of course, were all named odd things, ranging from Taco Bell to Roadkill. Jade had appropriately named hers Death, Masochist, and Anarchy.

"Uplifting names there, Jade," Sam commented.

"Speak for yourself, Roadkill," Jade retorted, making the others laugh.

The game started then, and Jade's turn was first. She had to think of a strategy using the weapons allocated to her, and she bit her lip in order to concentrate. There was the water gun, which wasn't of much use at this point, the mole, which was difficult to control, and there was a shotgun, which could be useful, actually –

She shot the first bullet, which hit one of Sam's worms and knocked him back into Jason's worm, which proceeded to blow up and hit another of Sam's worms – meaning Jade effectively took out three worms in one shot. Everyone else gasped as she smirked. "MLG."

"My poor worm didn't even get a chance," Jason fake cried.

"TWO OF MINE DIED!" Sam raged. "I THINK WE NEED TO DELETE JADE FROM THIS GAME."

"You asked me to play," Jade sang. "Oh, Sam's next."

"I'm getting my revenge," the other girl said, sounding determined. The gun she chose misfired, though, hitting none of the worms – and leaving Sam to rage all the more as Beck began his turn.

"What's a mole?" Beck questioned.

"It digs through the ground, basically," Jade said with a groan, knowing he would inevitably choose the dumbest weapon of them all.

"Oh, cool!" Beck chirped, choosing the mole and making it go straight down, effectively doing nothing at all. _Very helpful_, Jade thought to herself, trying not to groan. At least he was (somewhat) trying.

"Maybe don't choose the mole next time," she said through gritted teeth.

"I'm just living my life," Beck said, pretending to be offended.

"Live it better!" Jade hissed.

"It's my turn," Jason said with a laugh, choosing the water gun and shooting one of Jade's worms, Death, so that it fell in a hole full of water, causing the worm to slowly drown.

Jade groaned. "So you're killing Death."

"I am the master of all things," Jason gasped, sounding surprised. "I'm a wizard, Harry."

"Stop talking to yourself, Hagrid," Sam retorted. "It's Jade's turn again, and I swear if she kills another one of my worms I'm going to drive her worm so deep into the ground that she –"

"Sam," Jason interrupted with a laugh.

But Sam was not quite so lucky; one of her worms was lost to Jade's infamous gun power, leaving the other team ultimately powerless against Jade's team. Even with Beck's odd fascination with the mole, they still took the round easily, leaving the other team to rage.

"Team Bade is pretty good, huh?" Beck asked her proudly.

"Or I'm pretty good. You suck, dude," Jade said, laughing. "But it's okay. You're learning, I guess."

"One of these days I'll be a true gamer like you," Beck whined.

The next few rounds went basically the same way, with Jade dominating everyone at the game, Sam raging, Jason seeming somewhat impressed, and Beck using the damn mole every chance he got – costing Jade one of her worms at one point, unfortunately.

"We should go back to Mario Kart, I swear," Sam said at the end of the game. "At least Jade sucks at that one."

"Dude," Jade protested. "I was in eleventh; you were in tenth. It's _not _that big a difference."

"It is because I beat you," Sam replied happily.

"I'll have to play with you guys next time," Beck said, an odd edge to his voice that Jade didn't quite recognize. Was he jealous? Sure, she'd played Mario Kart with Sam, Andre, and Moose, but he'd done plenty of co-ops without her as well. It was a normal thing. USlappers liked to vary who they did with their co-ops with to add variety to their channels. There was no reason for Beck to be jealous, unless…

She bit her cheek, stopping any unwanted thoughts from entering her thought process. "Let's do another round, guys," she said to a chorus of mixed groans and laughter.

"Fine," Beck said, "but this time, the mole is actually gonna work."

.

**New Steam Message**

**Cat: **hey jade! :D

**Jade: **Hey, Cat.

**Cat: **YOU REPLIED! This is a miracle.

**Jade**: One mention of fanfiction and this will turn into a bad dream.

**Cat: **no worries. Just wondering what games we're doing for the stream this weekend. And if youre bringing a special guest ;D ;D

**Jade: **Beck? Probably not. My viewers might be getting sick of him, and he might be getting sick of me. Might invite Sam, Andre, or Tori, though. They're always good special guests.

**Cat: **But its your biiiiiiiiirthday weekend stream D: Beck might wanna be there! Does he even know?

**Jade: **Know what?

**Cat: **That your birthdays soon, silly! :D

**Jade**: Oh. No. And I'm not planning on letting him find out.

**Cat: **Jaaaade, he only needs to google it! Its not THAT private, ya know.

**Jade: **He'll have no reason to Google it if you don't give him one, _Cat_.

**Cat: **But Jaaaade! It almost feels like lying, and lying gives me a funny feeling in the tummy :/

**Cat: **Jaaaade.

**Cat: **Please let me tell him? D:

**Cat: **FINE. But the birthday cake is so burnt now! :/

**Cat: **(and also i bet he'll know anyway, b/c he luuuuuvs you. :D)

**Jade: **Shut up, Cat.

.

**A/N: this chapter sucks, for real for real. Again, first 2K words was written on receipt paper, so don't judge me too hard. Also, this is for Laura bc she drew me amazing fan art for this story! Seriously, check it out: twitter wowlaury/status/492379122283597824**

**As for referenced videos:**

**NO MORE TWERKING FOR MILEY! (TTT) www. Youtube watch?v=70nytc04pug  
Cry Plays: Among the Sleep [Alpha Demo] www. youtube watch?v=4jZUE4gAem8  
Fanfiction: Flowers for My Valentine. Read by: PewDiePie and Cry www .youtube watch?v=TGhkmWCFjiA  
Nova / Sp00n / Cry / Pewds - Worms Revolution Part 1 Match 1 www .youtube watch?v=SL7sGAfcE5M**

**I know there's a lot of characters in this story, but hey, LPers have to have a wide range of friends to keep stuff interesting ;) Plus I like lots of characters, so I hope you don't mind. Also, Worms can be confusing – each person has worms, main goal is to kill all the worms on the other team by utilizing different weapons. Worms die if they lose enough health or are hit off the map. It can be kinda confusing, but I hope you guys get the gist.**

**Thanks so much for all your reviews, honestly! Keep it up, it obviously motivates me. I'm updating pretty fast, see? And to the anon who asked: Marzia's awesome and all, but no, pewdiecry all the way, man.**

**Next Chapter: Prop Hunt (finally), Jade's birthday, the killing of zombies, and more Beck jealousy. Bc yes.**


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